SHORT HISTORY 



VENICE 




W-R-THAYER 



OESB LIBRARY 




LIBRARY -^ 

THE UNIVERSITY 
OF CALIFORNIA 

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PRESENTED BY 

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A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE 



A SHORT 

HISTORY OF VENICE 



BY 



WILLIAM ROSCOE THAYER 

AUTHOR OF "THE DAWN OF ITALIAN INDEPENDENCE," 

" THRONE-MAKERS," ETC. 

MEMBER OF THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY, 

CAVALIERE DELL* ORDINE DELLA CORONA 

D'ITALIA, ETC. 



BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
itoeitfiDe $#, Cambri&0e 
1908 

All rights reserved 



COPYRIGHT, 1905, 

BY THE MACMILLA'N COMPANY. 



Set up and electrotyped. Published April, 1905. 



PRINTED IN 

UNITED STATES 

OF AMERICA 



En fHnnorg of 
MY MOTHER 



PREFACE 

No other people has been the victim of more 
misconceptions than the Venetians. They have 
been praised for qualities they did not possess and 
blamed for crimes they did not commit. Roman- 
cers and poets have unwittingly belied them ; 
enemies have traduced; historians have turned 
partisans for or against them. It seems as if 
posterity were in league never to understand them. 

There are several reasons why the history of 
Venice has suffered in this way. First of all, its 
duration renders it difficult to make plain its con- 
tinuity amid the transformations of a thousand 
years. The life of Venice begins with the inva- 
sion of Attila; it was just ending when George 
Washington retired from the presidency of the 
United States. Next, the noble part which the 
Venetians played in the world, as intermediaries 
between Western Christendom and the Orient and 
as merchants during the era when the trade of sol- 
dier was deemed the most respectable, has rarely 
been sufficiently magnified. Historians usually 
concentrate their attention on the breaking up of 
the Eoman civilization, or on the medieval insti- 
tutions which replaced it, the Church and the 



viii PREFACE 

Empire, with the Papacy and the Monastic System, 
and with Feudalism or on the origin of those 
nations which, like the German, the French, and 
the English, have dominated the modern epoch. 
Venice pursued her own way independent of all 
these, and although she was in a large sense the 
product of the Middle Age, she was the least 
medieval of her contemporaries. To them she 
seemed abnormally progressive because she was 
stable ; while moderns, mistaking her stability for 
stagnation, have hastily concluded that she was 
incapable of progress. The trend of political evo- 
lution sets toward popular government ; the Vene- 
tians formed a powerful state after a different 
plan. They developed a national organism per- 
fectly adapted to their unique conditions, but so 
opposed to modern political ideals that few stu- 
dents have investigated it and fewer still have 
treated it sympathetically. Moreover, the d^ea- 
dence of Venice, being the most recent part of her 
career, is the best known; the last two centuries 
of excessive luxury and exhaustion have caused the 
five centuries of hardy growth and the five cen- 
turies of vigorous prime to be forgotten. But her 
decadence offers nothing peculiar to her; whereas 
her growth and prime were truly characteristic. By 
these she should be judged; just as the greatness 
of Imperial Kome should be judged by the achieve- 
ments of Julius and Augustus and the Antonines, 
and not by the failures of the Valeutinians. 

Assuming that for the most part decay explains 



PREFACE ix 

itself, my purpose in this little book is to set forth 
the greatness of the Venetians. By epitomizing 
long stretches of comparatively regular develop- 
ment, I have secured space for describing in detail 
those episodes through which the national spirit 
best reveals itself and those crises which mark 
structural changes in the political life. And since 
the complaint is often heard that Venice stifled 
individuality, I have taken care to outline the por- 
traits of many of the great men who wrought out 
her destiny. Whoever will compare her remark- 
able doges Orseolo the State-Builder, Domenico 
Michiel, Enrico and Andrea Dandolo, Pietro Gra- 
denigo, Tommaso Mocenigo, Francesco Foscari, Se- 
bastiano Venier, and Morosini the Peloponnesian 
with the kings of France and of England, will 
recognize that Venice did not crush out individu- 
ality. In Vettor Pisani and Fra Paolo Sarpi she 
produced a patriot and a statesman of the highest 
order, world-heroes, if ever there were such. 

To the student of government, the history of 
Venice affords an unparalleled opportunity, since 
it records the rise, uniform growth, uninterrupted 
functioning, and gradual decline of an important 
political system. We have no similar specimen 
of republic or of monarchy, because nowhere else 
has a republic or a monarchy been able to put into 
practice its principles undisturbed, during even a 
brief period. Foreign invasion, internal rebellion, 
dynastic or class rivalry, military ambition, these 
are the dislocating influences which arrest or mod- 



X PREFACE 

ify or cripple the orderly development of nations ; 
from these Venice was singularly free. 

But the very word " oligarchy " sounds so hateful 
to some ears that more than one writer has imputed 
to the Venetian oligarchy all the evils which over- 
took the Republic, including its decline and fall. 
The true historian, however, will not allow himself 
to be fooled by names; he will search for facts, 
and though he be a stanch democrat, he will do 
full justice to the Venetian oligarchy, even to the 
point of regretting that no democracy has thus far 
come as near perfection as the political system of 
Venice came. 

On whichever side we examine her institutions, 
we find order, intelligence, foresight, and harmony. 
The political worked in unison with the commer- 
cial ; but it worked equally, at least in intent, with 
the social. Venice employed experts to apply the 
best knowledge of her age to government, law, 
commerce, business, and public health; of what 
state to-day can we affirm as much ? She rose to 
that attainment of balance and solidarity which 
stamps a high civilization. Every one, noble or 
plebeian, lived for VEXEZIA, and in return .she 
shed her benefits on every one. If we assume 
that an oligarchy is necessarily bad, we shall never 
understand her history, nor the devotion which all 
of her children felt for her. 

The example of the unremitted application of 
intelligence to government which she set may well 
be pondered by nations groping after a political 



PREFACE xi 

and social reorganization which shall prove stable. 
Veiiice learned to adjust herself to her extraordi- 
nary geographical conditions and to her complex 
political environment. She solved, satisfactorily 
to herself, her social, industrial, and commercial 
problems. In a word, she found herself, lived her 
own life, grew to full stature, and then slowly 
passed away, not. because she was oligarchic, but 
because she was mortal. 

Her career has this further lesson for us to-day : 
it shows that not numbers but wisdom and charac- 
ter make a people great. Venice was a city-state. 
In her prime the capital never had a population 
of more than two hundred thousand inhabitants ; 
the rest of the Dogado, before the annexation of 
the mainland provinces, probably did not number 
one hundred thousand more. Yet this little state 
established a colonial empire relatively larger than 
the British Empire, and it carried on a commerce 
relatively more extensive than the British has ever 
been. There are, indeed, so many parallels between 
Venice and England that I have not hesitated, in 
the following pages, to call attention to them, or 
to cite other modern instances which may help to 
interpret the Venetian story. I have also tried 
to mark at each period the position of Venice in 
respect to the general development of her neigh- 
bors, and to the great currents which bore Europe 
on from the invasion of the barbarians, through 
Feudalism and Roman Theocracy, to the Reforma- 
tion and modern times. 



xii PREFACE 

For most persons the final reason and the strong- 
est for interest in Venice springs from her Beauty. 
The incomparable city captivates all her visitors ; 
her spell of romance charms even the dullest. 
"What poets dreamed these marvels? what ro-, 
mancers dwelt in these enchanted halls ? " they 
ask as they glide through the canals or float on 
the opaline Lagoon. To answer these questions is 
one of the objects of this sketch, which will show 
that the Venetians were a practical, earnest, far- 
seeing, sagacious people, no day dreamers, but men 
who looked facts squarely in the face, mastered 
them, and perpetually delighted in Beauty. The 
proof they gave that a genius for the Practical 
need not exclude a genius for the Beautiful is, 
next to their Art itself, the most precious of their 
legacies. 

In scope and method, not less than in point of 
view, therefore, this short history differs from 
other works in this field. Like every modern who 
has dealt with the Venetians, I have found the 
ten volumes of Eomanin's Storia Documentata di 
Venezia an invaluable quarry. While Venice was 
still under Austrian domination the modest Ro- 
manin produced his life work, which stands a mon- 
ument to his patriotism and scholarship. One 
cannot use his volumes constantly during several 
years without recognizing his fairness. He frankly 
defends Venice, just as Daru frankly assails her, 
and in so far he is partisan ; but the investigations 
of recent historical students have almost always 



PREFACE Xlii 

confirmed his judgments. I have refrained from 
overloading my text with footnotes and from citing 
authorities, but for the sake of readers who wish 
to go deeper into the subject, I have added a short 
list of the more important books. 

In conclusion, I wish to express my gratitude for 
various assistance during the preparation of this 
little book, to Professor Charles Eliot Norton, for 
much friendly criticism ; to Professor Albert Bush- 
nell Hart, for reading a part of the manuscript; to 
Captain A. T. Mahan and to Professor Pompeo 
Molmenti, who is easily first among those now 
living who know Venice in all her aspects, for 
replies to special questions ; and to the Harvard 
College Library, which sets the world an example 
in laying open its treasures to scholars. 



W. R. T. 



CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS, 
January 21, 1905. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

PREFACE vii 

LIST OF MAPS xvii 

CHAPTER 

I. THE BEGINNINGS, 421-810 .... 1 

II. BUILDING THE STATE, 810-1096 ... 25 

III. VENICE AND THE CRUSADES, 1096-1205 . . 45 

IV. IMPERIAL GROWTH THE GREAT RIVAL, 

1205-64 71 

V. FIXING THE CONSTITUTION, 1264-1310 . . 96 

VI. PERILS OF THE NEW REGIME, 1310-60 . . 117 

VII. THK DEATH GRAPPLE WITH GENOA, 1360-80. 135 

VIII. THE PARTING OF THE WAYS, 1380-1453 . 159 

IX. THE CRISIS OF CAMBRAI, 1453-1525 . . 189 

X. VENETIAN CIVILIZATION : INSTITUTIONS . . 212 

XL VENETIAN CIVILIZATION : LIFE AND ART . 228 

XII. THE Loss OF CYPRUS, 1525-90 . . .250 

XIII. SARPI, 1590-1623 264 

XIV. DECLINE AND FALL, 1623-1797 . . .293 
XV. EPILOGUE 318 

CHRONOLOGY AND LIST OF DOGES .... 331 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 343 

INDEX 345 

xv 



LIST OF MAPS 

VKXICE Frontispiece 

PAGE 

VENICE AND THE LAGOONS ...... 25 

IMPERIAL VEXICE 75 

POSSESSIONS ox TERRA FIRMA ... . 160 

THE HEART OF VENICE 233 



A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE 



CHAPTER I 
THE BEGINNINGS, 421-810 

AT the beginning of the Christian Era, the north- 
western shore of the Adriatic, from the mouth of 
the Piave on the north, to the mouth of the Bac- 
chiglione in the south, some fifty miles' distance, 
was formed by long, narrow strips of sand. They 
enclosed a lagoon, twelve miles across in its broad- 
est part, dotted with innumerable islets, and threaded 
by channels, sinuous and variable, through which 
the silt-burdened streams of the mainland wound 
slowly to the sea. At low tide, the shallows of the 
Lagoon lay bare. Sometimes, after the great rains, 
the rivers rose and flooded all but the highest of the 
islands ; or the southwest gale, blowing long and 
furiously up the Adriatic, drove the heaped water 
through the four openings of the sandy coast-rim, 
to startle the marsh fowl in their reedy haunts. But 
ordinarily, so placid was the bosom of the Lagoon, 
that the incessant making and unmaking of soil be- 
low the surface would not have been suspected. 
The land-locked islands, covered with verdure, had 



2 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

then 110 habitations, unless perhaps here and there 
a flimsy hut offered precarious shelter to some fisher- 
man more venturesome than his fellows. On the 
outer islands, or lidi, there may have been, even then, 
small settlements ; especially on the southernmost, 
which commanded the waterway to Padua. But 
the first impression produced on a visitor to the 
Lagoon, and the last, must have been of solitude, 
of sluggish waters and shifting lands, waters 
through which the boats of men could with difficulty 
find a passage, lands on which men themselves 
could hardly hope to build firmly or to get a meagre 
subsistence. 

Passing to the continent, however, one entered 
the luxuriant plain watered by the Po and fifty 
smaller rivers. Then, as now, that plain was one 
of the garden-spots of the world. Populous cities, 
thriving towns, busy villages, lived on its exhaust- 
less harvests. For hundreds of years its people, 
the Veneti, shared the culture of Koine, and they 
gave to Roman literature three of its masters. Livy 
was born near Padua, Virgil at Mantua, and Catul- 
lus made the shores of Lake Garda forever lovelier 
for his presence. Where the Veneti came from,, or 
when they first established themselves in the Delta 
of the Po, seems now past finding out. Some con- 
scientious historians remind us that before the 
Trojan War a tribe of Eneti dwelt in Paphlagonia; 
others report that much later there were Veneti in 
Brittany ; still others would ally them with the Slavic 
Wends ; but such gossip helps no more than silence. 



i THE BEGINNINGS, 421-810 3 

Possibly they were kinsmen of the Etruscans. All 
that we know certainly is that they had been pros- 
pering for centuries in their rich plain, when Julius 
Caesar admitted them to Roman citizenship. Then 
they saw emperor after emperor lead his armies 
across their plain and disappear northward into the 
vast wilderness beyond the Alps where the barbari- 
ans swarmed. 

Gradually, the vigor of Imperial Rome grew 
slack, and the barbarians, no longer withheld by the 
Koman legions, poured through the passes into 
Italy. In the land of the Veneti they found booty 
and ease hitherto undreamt of by them. At their 
coming, the most fearful of the citizens fled to the 
islands of the Lagoon, and remained there until 
the enemy, glutted with spoils, marched on. The 
refugees crept back to their dismantled homes, leav- 
ing behind them, after each flight, some of their 
companions, who preferred privation with safety to 
civilized comforts with danger. But at the begin- 
ning of the fifth century, the incursions from the 
North became more frequent and more terrible. 
In 401, Alaric led his Visigoths through Venetia ; 
in 405, Rhadagasius headed a host of Ostrogoths, 
Vandals, Suevi, Burgundians, and other barbarians ; 
thenceforward, the people of Venetia lived in con- 
sternation until the coming of Attila and his Huns 
in 452. Atrocious though he was, rumor born of 
panic made him more atrocious still. He devastated 
Illyria; he put to the sword the inhabitants of 
Aquileia, the most important city beyond Padua j 



4 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

and as he moved southward, whoever could, rushed 
to cover. This time the fugitives resorted in larger 
numbers than ever to the islands of the Lagoon, and 
most of them never went back to their old homes. 

So the year 452 stands as the date of the origin 
of Venice, although the old chroniclers, with the 
suspicious precision of ignorance, set March 25, 421, 
as the very day when, " about noon," the foundation 
stone of the city was laid. Their earlier date doubt- 
less refers to an actual event the sending from 
Padua of maritime tribunes to govern the settlers 
on the islands of Rivoalto, or Eialto ; but to Attila's 
scourge we trace the decisive emigration from the 
mainland to the Lagoon out of which the Venetian 
Republic sprang. 

As these emigrants, like the English Puritans 
who colonized Massachusetts, were civilized folk 
suddenly transplanted to a wilderness, the mean 
conditions into which they were forced did not 
fairly represent their culture. Moreover, as every 
class joined in the exodus, social distinctions were 
brought ready-made into the new communities. 
Above all, the Veneti had from of old the love and 
practice of liberty : their offspring, the Venetians, 
as we shall henceforth call the island settlers, 
were to preserve their freedom longer than any 
other nation. During more than thirteen hundred 
years from the time when they fled from Attila, 
they never .submitted to domination from abroad, 
nor suffered a tyrant at home. Through count- 
less vicissitudes of hardship, of glory, of dis- 



i THE BEGINNINGS, 421-810 5 

aster, they maintained inviolate the supremacy of 
the Venetian state ; guarding it jealously ; sacrific- 
ing everything else, personal and family ambition, 
and class interests, to keep it free and paramount. 
No other government has exacted more from, its 
citizens ; no other citizens have obeyed their state 
more willingly or loved it with a nobler passion. 
This is the more wonderful because Venice was in 
truth not a popular government in the modern 
sense, but the most highly organized oligarchy. 
Other oligarchies have flourished for a while, but 
the Venetian oligarchy alone knew how to identify 
its own interests with those of the entire population, 
so as to command, during a thousand years, not only 
the respect and obedience but the devotion of every 
child of Venice. And thus the history of the Vene- 
tian Republic unfolds the gradual identification of 
the dominant class with the inner life of the state, 
not less than the dealings of the state with the out- 
side world. 

But the fugitives from Attila's wrath had no 
vision of empire, or even of statehood ; happy they, 
if in their watery refuge they might merely exist. 
They set themselves to build, not a political fabric, 
but such dwellings as they could, out of mud and 
clay and rough-hewn logs. They learned where 
fish, their chief food, abounded, and where to plant 
their few vegetables. From landsmen they became 
seamen, but we have absolutely no details of the 
transformation. How did the upper classes, accus- 
tomed to luxurious idleness, now fare ? How close 



6 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAI-. 

were the relations with the old homes ? How much 
was saved from the wreck and transferred to the 
infant colonies, after the devastating Huns swept 
by ? This and much more must be left to conjec- 
ture : records are not written down during an earth- 
quake. 

We do know, however, that the new settlements 
differed one from another, just as the cities from 
which they had sprung differed, Malamocco, for 
instance, was reputed democratic, while Heraclea 
was aristocratic, and that the differences led in 
time to discord. But the need of harmony was 
most urgent, and in 466 representatives of the 
various townships met at Grade and chose officers 
to govern each community. The election of these 
tribunes, or gastalcli, marks the first step in the po- 
litical evolution of the Republic. Hitherto, the 
parent cities had exercised a real, and then a nomi- 
nal, suzerainty over the islands; now the islands 
proclaimed that they would have no more consuls 
from Padua, but local rulers of their own choosing ; 
no more tutelage, but independence ; and the cities 
of the mainland were too feeble to recover control. 

A large word is independence to apply to these 
island townships, whose population could have 
numbered even then only a few thousand souls, 
widely scattered in precarious homes. They had 
elected independence could they maintain it ? 
The Ostrogoth should come, the Lombard, the 
Greek, the Frank, and each should strive, by force 
or flattery or guile, to put asunder Venice and her 



i THE BEGINNINGS, 421-810 7 

independence : how could she, apparently so weak, 
baffle them all ? 

No matter how often we may have read the story, 
which of us can realize, even faintly, what the dis- 
solution of the Roman Empire meant to those who 
witnessed it in Italy ? We can, indeed, taking a 
philosophical view, "explain it" according to our 
present lights. We see that politically it involved the 
breaking up and passing away of an empire which 
had impressed its administration on the entire an- 
cient world ; we see also that ethnically it worked in 
Europe for the replenishing of the exhausted Latin 
and Latinized stocks by the Teutons and the Slavs, 
with their barbaric virility. Knowing the sequel, 
th'e tedious forming of new nations, having other 
institutions, laws, and religions, and culminating at 
last in a civilization higher than the Roman, we 
declare the rotting of Rome a necessary stage in 
human progress. 

But contemporaries could not peer into the fu- 
ture ; they saw only the catastrophe. If any prophet 
could have revealed to them that the horrors they 
were suffering would in a thousand years lead to a 
better condition, little would it have consoled them. 
To the victims on the rack, the present was all in 
all. Carried down in the crash of a system which 
they had believed to be indestructible, they could 
hardly have been more appalled if the laws of na- 
ture had come to a standstill. From the past they 
could get neither encouragement nor instruction ; 
for the past had witnessed no similar calamity. 



8 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

Among the higher classes of Italy there were the 
alternating languor and frenzy that punish long dis- 
sipation. Laws ceased to guide or to restrain. The 
multitudes were resolved into their primary brutish 
instincts, lust, robbery, murder. And everywhere, 
beside the Fury lurked the Fear. Possession was 
uncertain and brief. Death alone was sure. For, 
ever and anon, the hordes of the barbarians, Teuton 
or Hun, came like ravening wolves, whom no civil- 
ized pleasures had enervated, to devour and destroy ; 
until they learned at last that by settling in the 
land, and sparing the inhabitants to do their bid- 
ding, they might enjoy its fatness continuously. 
Rome was dying, and the awfulness of her death- 
throes was proportioned to her former grandeur 
and pride and strength. That spectacle has so as- 
tonished the world that only lately have historians 
sought to trace amid the chaos of those forces of 
death the forces which were at work to create 
society anew. 

On the edge of such ruin, like a young cedar on 
the brink of a whirlpool, the Venetian state took 
root. Not to be engulfed in the vortex of the 
sinking Empire, nor to be swept away by the wild, 
new freshets those the perils which had to be 
faced. The remoteness of the island settlements, 
not less than their poverty, proved their salvation. 
In 476, Romulus Augustulus, the last feeble Roman 
Emperor of the West, was deposed. Fourteen years 
later Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, invaded Italy, 
conquered much of it, set up his capital at Ravenna, 



THE BEGINNINGS, 421-810 9 

and maintained until 526 a better government than 
had been seen since Constantine. The Venetian towns 
grew, but not so visibly rich as to excite the cove- 
tousness of their Ostrogothic neighbors. Compara- 
tive tranquillity enabled them to extend their carry- 
ing trade up the rivers of the Po Delta and among 
the ports at the head of the Adriatic. 

From this era dates the first description we have 
by an eye-witness of the Venetian state in its in- 
fancy. Cassiodorus, Theodoric's pretorian prefect, 
addressed in 523 a letter to the Maritime Tribunes, 
exhorting them to convey promptly to Eavenna the 
customary tributes of .wine and oil from Istria. 
He praises their seamanship, which carried them 
over " infinite distances." " To your other advan- 
tages," he says, " it is added that you can always 
travel a safe and tranquil course ; for when through 
the angriness of the winds the sea is closed to you, 
there opens another way through the pleasantest 
rivers. Your ships fear not the harsh gusts. . . . 
With pleasure I recall how I have seen your habi- 
tations situated. The famous Venetian towns, 
already filled with nobles, border on the south 
Eavenna and the Po ; toward the east they enjoy 
the smiling Ionian shore, where the alternating 
tide now covers and now bares the surface of the 
fields. There are your houses like aquatic birds, 
now on sea and now on shore ; and when the aspect 
changes suddenly, these dwellings scattered far and 
wide, not produced by nature but founded by the 
industry of men, are like the Cyclades. The solid 



10 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

earth is there held together by woven willow 
boughs, and you have no doubts in opposing so 
frail a barrier to the waves, when the shore does 
not suffice, on account of its lowness, to hold back 
the mass of waters. Your inhabitants have abun- 
dance only of fish ; rich and poor live together in 
equality. The same food and similar houses are 
shared by all ; wherefore they cannot envy each 
other's hearths, and so they are free from the 
vice that rules the world. All your emulation 
centres on the salt-works ; instead of ploughs and 
scythes you turn cylinders, whence conies all your 
gain. Upon your industry all other products de- 
pend ; for though there may be somebody who 
does not seek gold, there never yet lived the man 
who desires not salt, which makes every food 
more savory. Therefore, repair your ships, which 
you keep hitched like animals to your walls." 

From the tone of Cassiodorus's letter, it is 
evident that the Venetians had contrived to stay 
on friendly terms with Theodoric, and at the same 
time to preserve their virtual independence. But 
the great Ostrogoth had scarcely died, in 526, before 
a graver peril confronted them. Justinian, .the 
Eastern Emperor, determined to bring Italy under 
the sway of Byzantium. 

With this in view, he despatched to the Penin- 
sula his general, Belisarius, who captured Ravenna 
in 540. Thenceforth the Exarchate, which touched 
the Lagoon on the north and east and represented 
a power at Constantinople whose strength had not 



i THE BEGINNINGS, 421-810 11 

yet been tested, might well be regarded by the 
Venetians as a menace ; but with characteristic 
adroitness they took care not to force a test. 
Whether from policy or from friendship, they lent 
their ships to transport the troops of Narses, who 
had succeeded Belisarius, and when Longinus, the 
next exarch, paid a friendly visit to the islanders, 
they welcomed him without reserve. He wished to 
make sure of their assistance against the Lombards, 
and he urged them to acknowledge the Eastern Em- 
peror as their suzerain. The Venetians granted his 
first request readily enough. Their answer to his 
second showed that they already understood the ad- 
vantage which their unique position gave them. 
" God, who is our help and protection, has saved us 
in order that we may dwell upon these watery 
marshes. This second Venice which we have raised 
in the Lagoons is a mighty habitation for us. No 
power of emperor or prince can reach us save by 
the sea alone, and of them we have no fear." 
Longinus freely acknowledged that their habitation 
was indeed mighty, and that they need fear neither 
prince nor emperor, but he coaxed them so pleas- 
antly to send an embassy to Constantinople, prom- 
ising that no formal oath should be exacted of 
them, that they complied. In due season their en- 
voys returned, bringing the first treaty which the 
Venetians, as a separate state, negotiated with a 
foreign power (568). 

And here we come to the question of the exact 
relation between Venice and the Eastern Empire. 



12 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

Whatever may have been the wording of this docu- 
ment or of others, Venice never was in fact de- 
pendent on Constantinople. From policy she might 
claim the Emperor as her suzerain, and she certainly 
at times sent a nominal tribute to him ; but no 
Byzantine ever crossed her threshold to govern her. 
If an Imperial messenger brought a request, she 
would listen, but she brooked no command. From 
the beginning she shrewdly avoided entangling 
alliances with her neighbors, whose friendship 
might prove as dangerous as their enmity, and she 
professed for those whom distance rendered harm- 
less a deference not to be construed too literally. 
In the long run she got much more than she gave 
by her titular dependence on the Eastern Empire. 
Politically she gained much; commercially she 
gained more. The day never came when the pro- 
tection she bought so cheap threatened her liberty. 
At the first sign of such a danger she would have 
averted it by seeking other allies. From the end 
of the sixth century, therefore, we must think 
of her as politely acknowledging the supremacy of 
the Emperor at Constantinople, without allowing 
this to interfere in the least with her national 
ambition. 

But while the Venetians so early agreed on a 
policy to be held in their dealings with the outside 
world, they suffered from long discords at home. 
Among the twelve communities 1 which comprised 

1 These twelve were Grado, Bibiones, Caprulue (Caorle), 
Heraclea, Jesolo (Cavallino), Torcello, Murano, Rialto, Meta- 



I THE BEGINNINGS, 421-810 13 

the little Republic, there were inevitable rivalries, 
due to the feuds which they had inherited from their 
parent cities, or to commercial competition, or to 
different ideals in government, or to the clashing 
of family ambitions. The tribune had only a local 
authority ; too often he lacked even that. In 584, 
in each township a second tribune was " elected 
by all the people," and these twelve new officers 
seem to have been the forerunners of a central gov- 
ernment. From the earliest times, however, the 
people kept the final control in their own hands. 
Their arrengo, or popular assembly, in which every 
citizen might speak and vote, resembled in its de- 
mocracy the New England town meeting. That 
the magistrates thus chosen came to have much 
greater power than the New England selectmen was 
due to the violence of the age and to the Roman 
tradition. In every land where that tradition has 
penetrated there has been an invariable tendency, 
no matter what the system of government, to mag- 
nify the person in office at the expense of the cit- 
izens who created him. Nevertheless, in Venice, 
even after the election of the greater tribunes, the 
need of a centralized government was still strongly 
felt ; for though the tribunes were often powerful 
enough to tyrannize over their fellow-townsmen, 
they were still too weak either to compel harmony 
or to set up a despotism throughout the Lagoons. 
From the outside, as usual, came the wholesome, 

maucus (Malamocco), Pupillia (Poveglia), Clugies Minor, Clugies 
Major (Chioggia). Brown, p. 2. 



14 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

welding strokes. In 568 the Lombards, the last of 
the Teutonic barbarians, conquered Northern Italy 
and set up a vigorous rule down to the shore of the 
Lagoons. Then for the last time Venetians of the 
mainland fled for safety to the islands, and Tor- 
cello remains to this day as a memorial of that 
final settlement, which added several thousand 
inhabitants to the population, and, more important 
still, put an end to all thought of going back. 
Thus " what Attila began, Alboin, the king of the 
Lombards, completed." The Venetians had now to 
learn to live beside an imperious neighbor. They 
agreed to pay certain dues, in return for which 
they were allowed to pursue their commerce along 
the rivers. They kept their friendship with the 
Eastern Emperor, who still held Ravenna. To 
make the port against both wind and tide is the 
seaman's art ; the Venetians were seamen in their 
statecraft too. But they still owed most to their 
comparative insignificance and to their fairy god- 
mother, Poverty. 

Throughout the seventh century, while their 
foreign relations stood thus at seesaw between 
Lombards and Byzantines, the Venetians quarreled 
incessantly among themselves. Rival families, ri- 
val towns, rival forms of government, were striv- 
ing for mastery; and there was also the love of 
fighting for fighting's sake which belongs to the 
half civilized. At length the soberer citizens 
realized that in bloodshed the young state would 
exhaust itself. Christopher, Patriarch of Grado, 



i THE BEGINNINGS, 421-S10 15 

the spiritual head of the Venetians, called an 
assembly at Heraclea in 697, and proposed that 
instead of the twelve tribunes there should be a 
single ruler. Thereupon they elected Paoluccio 
Anaf esto their Doge the Venetian form of dux or 
duke and gave him almost absolute authority 
over the administration and the army, and also 
over ecclesiastical appointments. The tribunes 
were retained, but merely as local officers. The 
arrengo alone stood as a check on the Doge's autoc- 
racy. We must not suppose, however, that these 
distinctions were observed all at once. Unlike 
modern states, which spring, with a ready-made 
constitution, into being, the Venetian Republic 
grew. 

The election of Doge Anaf esto marks the unifi- 
cation of the cluster of small towns which had 
hitherto been loosely held together in a confeder- 
acy ; the federal units might still clash among 
themselves, but the fact of their unity was the 
great fact. Anafesto, being a Heraclean, presum- 
ably represented the aristocratic ideas which pre- 
vailed at Heraclea. He had fierce struggles with 
the democrats, headed by the men of Jesolo and 
Malamocco, and overcame them only after much 
slaughter. Abroad, however, by negotiating a com- 
mercial treaty with Liutpraiid, the Lombard king, 
he won a diplomatic victory which all his subjects 
could enjoy. When Anafesto died, after reigning 
twenty years, he left the state stronger in spite of 
its dissensions, but the permanence of the dogeship 



16 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

was not yet assured. His successor, Marcello Te- 
galliano, another Heraclean, had an ecclesiastical 
quarrel to adjust. Aquileia had been the patriar- 
chate of the Upper Adriatic until Attila's invasion, 
when the Patriarch fled to Grado and there estab- 
lished a new see. After the Patriarch's return to 
Aquileia, the Bishop of Grado became the most 
important ecclesiastic in the Lagoons, so important, 
indeed, that Pope Pelagius II created him a patri- 
arch, and made his bishopric the metropolitan see 
for Maritime Venice and Istria (579). This inten- 
sified the archiepiscopal hatred of the Aquileian 
patriarchs for their brothers of Grado, and they did 
not stick at inducing the Lombards, who were 
willing enough, to attack and capture Grado. 
Donato, the Patriarch of Grado, escaped to Venice 
and implored Tegalliano to reinstate him ; but the 
Doge discreetly referred the quarrel to the Pope, 
with recommendations in favor of Donato. The 
Pope could do no less than comply, if only be- 
cause Donato had remained firmly orthodox, where- 
as his Aquileian rival had joined the Arian schism ; 
but as the Pope had no physical means of com- 
pelling submission, it was not until the Lateran 
Council (732) confirmed his decision that the older 
patriarch ceased to harass the younger. 

This outcome of what seemed a mere churchman's 
wrangle proved of immense importance to Venice. 
The Eoman Church was the first institution des- 
tined to long life that rose after the collapse of the 
ancient world. By the eighth century this Church 



i THE BEGINNINGS, 421-810 17 

Avas already reaching out for political power and 
territorial possessions for those temporalities 
which eventually transformed the religious institu- 
tion into the Papacy, the worldliest of medieval ' 
states and the most irreligious. Venice alone \ 
escaped the tyranny of this subtle power. The 
Patriarch of Grado was her Patriarch, Venetian 
before he was Roman, bound by personal interests 
and by civic loyalty to uphold Venice against even 
the Roman Pontiff. In later days, when the new 
states of Western Christendom learned one by one 
that in fostering the Roman Church they had 
harbored a body of foreign political intriguers, 
Venice knew that from her priests and prelates she 
had little to fear. She watched the long struggles 
of France, of Moravia, of Hungary, to establish 
each a national church ; she witnessed the mighty 
contest between Popes and Holy Roman Emperors, 
and their mutual destruction ; she saw England 
cringing in the thirteenth century before the 
Roman legate, and shaking off the Roman shackles 
in the sixteenth century, only to substitute for 
them an emasculate and disingenuous form of Ro- 
manism ; she saw Spain at the height of empire 
surrender herself, body and soul, to Rome, and 
thereafter rot, body and soul, past all remedy: 
Venice was a spectator of all these tragedies, but 
they gave her no personal concern. She never 
had an ecclesiastical problem ; and never, until her 
decadence, did she suffer a Roman ecclesiastic to 
speak officially as a Roman within her borders. 



18 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP, 

Assured of independence from clerical control, she 
remained devout when other nations warred openly 
with the Church whose tenets they professed. And 
as she was spared the horrors of a religious war, 
so she was never poisoned by the remembrance of 
them. For many ages her soil was the abode of 
religious toleration. The Patriarch of Grado 
(whose see was not transferred to Venice itself 
until 1445) was her pope ; and if the Roman Curia 
insisted too haughtily on " St. Peter," Venice re- 
plied with equal haughtiness and greater affec- 
tion, " St. Mark." " Venetians first, Christians 
afterward," was the immemorial maxim of her 
people. 

Under the third Doge, Orso, surnamed Ipato 
(726-37), the Venetians won their first military 
success. The Lombards had conquered the Exar- 
chate and occupied Ravenna. The Venetians, 
dreading further encroachments in that direction, 
sent a fleet to Ravenna, and after a long siege 
captured it arid slew the Lombard commander. 
This episode, besides giving the Venetians military 
prestige, showed that they would grant or withhold 
their alliance according to what they deemed their 
own interests. The Greek Emperor expressed his 
gratitude by bestowing upon Doge Orso the title 
of Hypatos or Imperial Consul, and friendly rela- 
tions with the Lombards were restored. 1 

1 Some historians base their assertion that Venice was literally 
a dependency of the Greek Empire on the fact that Orso and 
several of his successors accepted the title Hypatos. The evi- 



i THE BEGINNINGS, 421-810 19 

But at home the old feuds flared up afresh. 
Orso was accused of plotting to surrender the Re- 
public to the Greek Emperor, who would create him 
its autocratic governor, and in an insurrection he 
was killed. The assembly refused to elect another 
doge. " We desire not," they said, " to choose a 
lord, as the doges have shown they wish to be. 
Why did our ancestors seek these islands except 
to live in freedom ? Had they wished to be slaves, 
there were many better dwelling places where they 
might have settled." Instead of a doge, therefore, 
they chose the master of the soldiers mastro 
miUtum to hold office for a year; but at the end 
of six years they returned to their ducal govern- 
ment and never afterward abandoned it. Deodato, 
the fourth Doge (742-55), had a stormy reign, in 
which the enemies of Heraclea rose against him ; 
he was deposed and barbarously blinded, and within 
a year his rival, Galla Gaulo, met the same fate. 
Then at last Malarnocco, the little city on the outer 
island rim, elected her candidate, Domenico Mone- 
garo (756-64), and became the capital of the Vene- 
tians. So intent were the democrats on preventing 
a lapse into one-man power that they set two trib- 
unes to be a check on him an arrangement which 
speedily led to quarrels, in which " his eyes were 
outed of his head, and his person of his office." 
During more than a generation the struggle for 

dence seems to me not to warrant this conclusion, even after 
\ve make what allowance we choose for the fact that our 
information comes from Venetian sources. 



20 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

supremacy between Heraclea and Malamocco did not 
abate ; but in the end, Malamocco triumphed and 
her rival was destroyed. The Heracleans and their 
enemies of Jesolo were transported to Malamocco, 
in the hope that thereby the various elements of 
discord might be fused into one harmonious people. 
Meanwhile there appeared a new conqueror 
the mightiest since Csesar. To stop the encroach- 
ments of the Lombards, the Pope implored the 
assistance of the Franks. Over the Alps, down the 
valley of the Po, across the marches, to the shores 
of the Adriatic, came Charles the Great and subdued 
the Lombards. He seems to have been satisfied at 
first with imposing restrictions upon Venetian com- 
merce ; but by and by, when he had grown to be 
the virtual sovereign of Western Christendom, he 
could hardly allow the small commonwealth in 
the Lagoons to exist independent of his control. 
Nevertheless, in the compact which he made in 
803 with the Greek Emperor, he agreed that the 
Venetians should enjoy undisturbed the position 
and liberties they had been accustomed to in the 
Kingdom of Italy. But there had sprung up in 
Venice itself a party which held that their only 
salvation lay in submitting to Charlemagne as 
suzerain. Personal ambitions, family feuds, local 
jealousies, and the projects of the Patriarch com- 
bined to make this Frankish party formidable. Its 
adherents, forgetting the traditional policy of Ven- 
ice, nearly wrecked their state by urging that unless 
they voluntarily took Charlemagne for their lord, 



i THE BEGINNINGS, 421-810 21 

the Greek Emperor would forcibly take them for 
his vassals a specious plea, since the Frankish 
conquest put an end to the waning Byzantine influ- 
ence in Northern Italy. Some of these partisans, 
driven into exile, sought refuge in the Prankish cities 
of the mainland ; others fled to Charles at Aix and 
implored him to aid them ; the greatest number 
stayed at home and carried on their intrigues as 
openly as they dared. Evidently, only the com- 
parative insignificance of the Maritime Republic 
caused Charlemagne to refrain from attacking it. 
Just Avhat pretext his son Pepin had for organiz- 
ing an expedition against Venice, we do not know ; 
there are certain situations which are themselves 
a sufficient reason for any act, good or bad, which 
may arise out of them (810). 

Pepin, having gathered a large flotilla at Ravenna, 
aimed his assault from the ea. The Venetians, 
who had always deemed themselves impregnable 
on that side, were astonished, if not dismayed, as 
they lost one port after another. Pepin took Bron- 
dolo ; he took Chioggia ; he stormed Pelestrina ; 
only Albiola and a narrow channel lay between him 
and Malamocco, the capital. But at Albiola the 
Venetians at last made an effectual stand. Then 
the Frankish invasion became a siege, which dragged 
on for half a year, until the heats wasted Pepin's 
army. Possibly, too, rumors that a Byzantine fleet 
was on its way to relieve the Venetians may have 
warned him to withdraw. At any rate, by mid- 
summer, he raised the siege, and Venice was saved. 



22 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

Charlemagne bore no malice against the Venetians, 
for he gave back the territory Pepin had captured, 
and he consented that they should pay no more 
tribute in future than they had paid to the Lom- 
bards in the past. That tribute, " thirty-six pounds 
of pure silver," was rather a trader's license fee 
than a vassal's offering. By the treaty of Aix, con- 
cluded with the Eastern Emperor, he acknowledged 
that the Venetians belonged to the Eastern Empire. 

Pepin's invasion, revealing the insecurity of 
Malamocco, marked another turning-point in the 
development of Venice. During the siege, the 
women and children and old men were removed 
from the lidi to the islands of Rialto, situated about 
midway in the Lagoon, beyond reach of an enemy ; 
and when the danger had passed, the Venetians 
voted to transfer the capital to Rialto. Next, the 
common peril united the feud-sundered factions. 
We hear little more of Frankish or Greek partisans, 
and never again did any powerful party shamelessly 
propose to surrender the independence of the Re- 
public. With the growth of the new capital, the 
old municipal jealousies naturally died out. Mala- 
mocco sank into tranquillity, as Heraclea had sunk 
before her; for now the greater life throbbed at 
Venice, the city which, being founded by men of 
all parties, belonged to all and not to any one. 

Finally and chiefly, Venice had met victoriously 
the new power which Charlemagne had consolidated. 
The Holy Roman Empire and the Papacy were the 
two institutions which, either jointly or separately, 



I THE BEGINNINGS, 421-810 23 

lorded it over mere kings and local rulers through- 
out the Middle Age. As Venice had already avoided 
falling into the grasp of the Papacy, so she now 
eluded the clutches of the Empire. By preserving 
her independence during Charlemagne's lifetime 
she established it in perpetuity ; because when he 
died the military force he had wielded was shat- 
tered, his Empire was divided and broken up, and 
by the time another strong Emperor came into 
Italy, Venice herself was too strong to fear sub- 
jugation. 

The Papacy, the Empire, and the Venetian Re- 
public were three independent institutions which 
rose out of the chaos into which the ruin of Eome 
plunged the ancient world. Church and Empire 
claimed to be universal ; Venice was perforce local. 
Lacking the incalculable advantage which its reli- 
gious pretensions gave the Church, or the advantage 
which the Empire drew from its attempt to revive 
magnificent traditions, Venice served civilization 
not less truly than they. Her vitality was as dur- 
able as theirs ; her achievements not less splendid. 
Empire and Church helped, however imperfectly, 
to unify Western Christendom ; at least, they kept 
alive the ideal of unity. It was the mission of 
Venice to bind Western Christendom to the rest of 
the world, to the Greek Christians of the ^Egean 
and the Bosphorus, and to the great non-Christian 
races of the Orient, to the Arab, the Persian, 
and the Hindu. Her relations were primarily not 
political, not religious, but commercial : she taught 



24 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP, i 

how commerce may be a humanizing agency in 
epochs when religion fosters wars, and governments 
treat every foreigner as a foe. Had Charlemagne 
succeeded in crushing her nascent power, her story 
would have been as insignificant as that of Zara or 
Trieste. 

" Be thou unique ! " is the command Fate issued 
to Venice alone among the nations. " In the isola- 
tion of thy site, none shall resemble thee. In thy 
freedom from Pope and Emperor, none shall rival 
thee. The city thou buildest on the ooze of the 
Lagoon shall outlast the rock-built cities of the 
crag and the broad-laid cities of the plain. Out of 
thine incessant combat with the sea shall come thy 
strength. Thy soul shall delight in beauty, and 
beautiful shall be thy handiwork." 

As the flower lies in the seed, so all these pos- 
sibilities lay in the tiny Venetian Commonwealth 
after the repulse of Pepin. 



fj 
s~v- f 7.2 

P , B. 




CHAPTER II 

BUILDING THE STATE, 810-1096 

AXGELO PARTECIPAZO, or Badoer (811-27), the 
first Doge of the new era, set about converting 
the islands of Kialto into a worthy capital. He 
built the first Ducal Palace, doubtless a rugged 
structure, on the site where the present one stands. 
He appointed Pietro Tradonico to be chief architect 
for the whole city, Lorenzo Alimpato to direct the 
digging of canals and the raising of embankments, 
and Xicolo Ardisonio to devise means for protect- 
ing the lidi from being washed away. Angelo has 
justly been called the founder of Venice, for by him 
and by these three assistants were traced the out- 
lines of the magic city which we know. Most of 
the little islands forming the Kialtine group were 
already inhabited ; but he joined them by bridges 
and united them under a single administration. 

Angelo had been dead only a few months when 
the body of St. Mark was brought to Venice 
(January 31, 828) by two merchants, Rustico of 
Torcello and Buono of Malamocco, who had escaped 
with it, in marvelous fashion, from Alexandria. 
AVe can hardly realize what it meant in that age 
for a city to have a patron saint. He served it not 
25 



26 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

only as a constant protector in its daily affairs, but 
also as an intercessor before the Almighty. By its 
thinly disguised polytheistic system of saints, angels 
and archangels, the Roman Church perpetuated the 
ancient pagan worship of minor gods and local 
deities of beings sufficiently near the human to 
be within the reach of the average understanding. 
Between the worshiper and God, the Church has 
always interposed either some celestial intercessor 
or a living priest, and has dedicated its houses of 
worship not to God but to his saints. The patron 
of a city or a state was, therefore, of the highest 
religious importance. In St. Mark the Venetians 
secured a patron of the first order. The legend 
that Mark when alive had landed on an island of 
Rialto and been met by Christ with the words, 
" Peace to thee, Mark, my Evangelist," easily gained 
credence, as indicating that he was predestined to 
be the protector of the future city. In prestige, 
Mark shone not less brightly than Peter or Paul, 
and the Venetians by accepting him deposed to a 
secondary position St. Theodore, who had till then 
been their guardian ; even among the saints, it 
seems, there are social distinctions. Alongside of 
the Ducal Palace they began the basilica in which 
they worshiped St. Mark and preserved his body. 
In that worship there was nothing perfunctory. No 
other patron of medieval times not St. James in 
Spain, nor St. George in England, nor St. Denis 
in France grew so intimately into the hearts of 
his people as did St. Mark. The Venetians 



ii BUILDING THE STATE, 810-1096 27 

revered him and they loved him, and out of their 
great love and reverence they made his sanctuary 
the most beautiful in Christendom. 

The bringing of St. Mark's body from Alexandria 
shows that at the beginning of the ninth century 
Venice had already extensive commercial relations. 
The earliest islanders supported themselves by 
fishing. Then salt became a staple, and the salt- 
erns of the little Republic supplied all the neighbor- 
ing Italians. Soon a carrying trade was organized, 
and the Venetian vessels plied up and down the 
rivers or along the coast. As more seaworthy 
ships w r ere built, longer voyages were undertaken. 
Before 750 regular mercantile intercourse was es- 
tablished with France, Constantinople, and Egypt. 
Istria and the eastern shore of the Adriatic had of 
course been exploited before this. When a great 
fair was opened at Pavia, about 770, the Venetian 
traders mounted the Po and displayed for sale silk 
and cloth of gold and other oriental wares. In 977 
they had a colony at Limoges, and in the following 
century they invaded Marseilles, Aiguemortes, Tou- 
louse, and other cities of Southern France. They 
opened a regular postal service between Venice 
and Constantinople, which required fifty days for 
the round trip. 

Their own isolation sent them to the mainland 
for building material, for vegetables and meat, for 
metals and for all luxuries. Everything conspired 
to breed in them enterprise, thrift, foresight, and to 
make them by Charlemagne's time important out 



28 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

of proportion to their numbers. They had dis- 
covered their mission, commerce, and were far 
advanced on the road to civilization before Pepin 
thundered at their outposts. To get a true view of 
the Venetians we must remember that, amid wars 
and political upheavals about which history has 
most to tell, commerce, seldom chronicled, was the 
real business of their lives. Year in, year out, their 
ships went shuttling across the Adriatic or the 
Mediterranean, and up the Italian rivers; their 
merchants were trading with Greek and Arab, with 
Frank and Saxon and Slav ; and the best thought 
of their rulers was spent in devising ways for 
safeguarding and extending their trade. 

Thus the Venetian state put forth the attributes 
of permanence, which implies, not the changeless- 
ness of stagnation, but adaptability. It took root 
in the new conditions which were slowly transform- 
ing Western Europe into a collection of states more 
or less plastic to feudalism. In Venice herself, 
however, feudalism never prevailed. Her deep-set 
love of liberty, combined with her fortunate isola- 
tion, saved her from it. But the development of 
her peculiar system of government went on. Dur- 
ing the ninth and tenth centuries the problem was 
whether the Doge should become an hereditary sov- 
ereign ; for other nations, on emerging from bar- 
barism, invariably adopted the dynastic principle. 
The Holy Roman Empire seemed at first an excep- 
tion, but it too became, in spite of its more than 
national scope, the appanage of a single German 



n BUILDING THE STATE, 810-1096 29 

house. Even the Church, through the ambition of 
her political counterpart, the Papacy, narrowly 
escaped from the rule of hereditary popes. The de- 
fects in an elective monarchy are as easy to point 
out as are the reasons why elective monarchs should 
strive to hand on their crown to their descendants. 
In Venice, between 811 and 979, out of sixteen 
doges nine belonged to the Badoer family and five 
to the Candiano. The Doge usually associated his 
son with him in the government, so that when the 
father died the election of the son was assured. 
The rivalry of those two families prevented the 
succession in either from being continuous. The 
unpopularity of some of the doges and the incom- 
petence of others rendered the dynastic principle 
unattractive, and the people clung to the system 
of election, thanks to which, although they might 
choose one bad doge, they could hope to choose a 
better one next time. 

Nevertheless, the Badoeri and Candiani, though 
they failed in making their dynasties hereditary, 
held in turn immense power : as when the Doge, the 
Patriarch of Grado, the Bishop of Olivolo (then the 
chief prelate in Eialto), and other high dignitaries 
in Church and State, were all kinsmen. That the 
democratic principle overcame against such odds, 
proves how fundamental it was in the Venetians' 
character. We must guard against assigning a 
modern meaning to such a political term as " demo- 
cratic " when we apply it to the Venetians. They 
gloried in their democracy to the end, even when 



30 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

their government was a rigid oligarchy, and little 
survived of democracy save its name. But during 
these formative centuries they insisted on making 
and deposing their supreme ruler, as their one right 
not to be relinquished. 

Compared with her Christian neighbors at this 
period, Venice led a not unduly stormy life. Two 
doges were assassinated ; several abdicated and en- 
tered a monastery; there were violent clashes be- 
tween the ducal power and the Patriarch, and the 
rise of a few great families, mutually hostile, 
caused more than one bloody brawl. But there 
was, nevertheless, a measurable growth in respect 
for legality, in the ability of the government to 
maintain order, and in the desire of the people to 
enjoy it. Venice in the ninth century was politi- 
cally more stable than France in the nineteenth, 
and we should probably have to seek beyond 
Christian lands, at Cordova, under the Ommiyades, 
to find a higher contemporary civilization. 

But whether there were peace or discord at home, 
Venice had seldom a long respite from foes abroad. 
The eastern coast of the Adriatic, with its narrow, 
intricate inlets and its wild mountains, formed a 
perfect resort for pirates ; and there Slavic pirates 
throve by preying on Venetian traders and by ter- 
rorizing the people of Istria and Croatia. To keep 
them in check was a never-finished task. The 
pirates could not be bound by pledges. When 
captured, they were taken to Venice and sold into 
slavery. The name of the chief quay, Kiva degli 



n BUILDING THE STATE, 810-1096 31 

Schiavoui (" the Slavonians' Quay "), is a reminder, 
like the word " slave " itself, of that practice. Yet 
it was the increased armament required for dealing 
with these outlaws which made possible both the 
great naval power of Venice and her empire on 
the Adriatic and in the East. Geography deter- 
mined that the object of Venice should be com- 
merce, not conquest. In buying and selling she 
regarded no man as an enemy. But she discovered 
that, first her own merchants and next those with 
whom they traded, must be protected ; and protec- 
tion took many forms, now a galley sent to con- 
voy the fleets of rich-freighted merchantmen ; now 
a garrison to guard the Venetian factory in some 
foreign city; now a protectorate or colony main- 
tained from purely business motives. Much time 
was to pass before Imperial Venice came into being ; 
but we shall do well to remember from the start 
the principle which governed her expansion. All 
her various methods of protection were but policing. 
Her first important naval expedition ended dis- 
astrously. In the ninth century the Saracens 
scoured the Mediterranean. As eager as the Slavs 
for plunder, unlike the Slavs they seized laud and 
colonized wherever they could. They were already 
conquering Sicily and menacing Southern Italy, 
when the Greek Emperor, Theodosius, besought Ven- 
ice to aid him against them. She quickly fitted out 
a fleet of sixty dromoni, heavy galleys, each with 
two hundred men (making an enormous force, if the 
figures be correct), and joined the Greek navy at 



32 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

Crotona, on the Gulf of Tarentum, where they 
gave battle to the Saraceus. At the first onset the 
Greek commander slunk away with his fleet ; the 
Venetians, overmatched, were compelled to with- 
draw ; and the Saracens chased them up the Adri- 
atic with such energy that only a few of the 
galleys escaped capture or destruction. Venice 
herself seemed in danger of an attack ; but after a 
taunting reconnaissance, the victors steered south- 
ward (840). 

Once more, and for the last time within the cen- 
tury, Venice beheld a formidable enemy at her 
gates. In 900 the Magyars, under their great 
chief, Arpad, descended through Friuli, " the 
most harmful door, left open by nature to chas- 
tise the faults of Italy," and having ravaged as 
far west as Pavia, they heard of the rich spoils 
they might seize in Venice. Retracing their steps 
and following the route Pepin had taken, they at- 
tacked the Republic at its southwestern corner. 
Again did Brondolo, Chioggia, and Pelestrina suc- 
cumb ; again did the Venetians mass their strength 
at Albiola ; and again was Venice saved. ' The 
Magyars, so terrible on land, could not cope with 
the sea-bred Venetians on the water (June 29, 900). 
To this day the name S. Pietro in Volta St. Peter 
of the Turn commemorates the turning in flight 
of Arpad's host. One other military event needs 
to be recorded : an expedition against the neigh- 
boring town of Comacchio, which the Venetians 
razed to a state of insignificance from which it never 



II BUILDING THE STATE, 810-1096 33 

emerged. If jealousy of a possible rival was the 
motive of this severity, as has been asserted, it 
shows the unlovely side of this nation of merchants. 
They could not be tempted into war by lust of 
empire, but without remorse they would cut down 
a competitor. 

Through all these vicissitudes the Republic 
steadily waxed strong. The depredations of the 
pirates caused it to organize a navy ; invaders by 
land caused it to fortify its landward approaches, 
and even the islands. At the time of the Magyar 
peril a strong castle was built at Olivolo, near the 
site of the present Arsenal, and a battlernented 
wall, then or a little later, shut in the grassy fields 
and orchards which we know as the Place of St. 
Mark. Another high wall skirting the Riva degli 
Schiavoni connected the Castle with the Ducal 
Palace. 

By adroitly pursuing her traditional policy, Ven- 
ice steered a safe course between the East and the 
West. Luckily Charlemagne left no heir capable 
of holding together his ill-joined realm. In 842 the 
Venetians negotiated with Lothair, titular King of 
Italy, a treaty which gave them large privileges, 
subsequently confirmed or extended during many 
generations. Even when a rejected aspirant to the 
dogeship fled to the German sovereign as hap- 
pened in the tenth century and besought him to 
make war on the Republic, friendly relations were 
not long interrupted. A sudden illness took off 
Otto II, who had espoused the cause of the unpa- 



34 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

triotic Caloprini, and removed the peril. Already 
Venice had discovered that a foreign policy, founded 
on reason and carried out consistently, enables a 
comparatively weak nation to win against the brag- 
gart or veering policy of stronger rivals. 

With the Eastern Emperors she had a similar 
experience. If one were harsh, his successors might 
be friendly. The Venetians made no effort to rid 
themselves of a merely nominal suzerainty, nor did 
the Byzantine suzerain strive to convert his nomi- 
nal lordship into an actual mastery. In the earlier 
days it had hardly been worth while for the Eastern 
Empire to conquer the remote and inconspicuous 
commonwealth on the Lagoons; now Venice had 
grown too strong to fear any fleet that could be 
equipped at Constantinople; what served to keep 
the two at peace was the fact, acknowledged by each, 
that they were mutually helpful. As the commerce 
of Venice expanded, it drew the bulk of its supplies 
from the East. The Adriatic was but a broad avenue 
leading down to the Ionian and ^Egean seas, whose 
shores were dotted with prosperous cities, thronging 
with merchants as eager to sell as the Venetians to 
buy. And now, when the Saracens had become 
a redoubtable marine power, the Greeks saw that 
their interest lay in keeping the growing navy of 
the Lagoons on their side. 

The maritime supremacy of Venice over the Adri- 
atic began through the need of the Istrians for pro- 
tection from the Slavic pirates ; this she promised 
in return for one hundred jars of wine every year. 



ii BUILDING THE STATE, 810-1096 35 

There was at first no question of suzerainty; to 
have raised it, would have precipitated a conflict 
with the Greek Emperor. In her territorial expan- 
sion she left much to time, never dropping the 
substance to snap at the shadow. The Imperial 
authority inevitably lapsed, and then she was at 
hand to supplant it. 

Of very few of the Venetians of this epoch can 
we recover the personal features. Most of those 
who have survived even by name were either doges 
or patriarchs, who stand out as types rather than as 
individuals. Nor is this surprising; for as the 
earliest chronicle extant dates from the end of the 
tenth century, its writer had to depend on tradition 
or hearsay for his account of what happened before 
he was born; hence Anafesto was as far behind 
Sagorninus as Marlborough is behind us. And yet 
several modern historians amplify details about each 
personage, assigning motives which nobody can ver- 
ify, and specifying personal traits which may or 
may not be lifelike, with a confidence that must 
astonish those who distinguish between fact and 
conjecture. The general trend of development we 
do know, and we have considerable testimony con- 
cerning several of the most important events ; but 
this does not warrant us in drawing imaginary por- 
traits of the men themselves. 

And yet some of the names and the deeds asso- 
ciated with them are memorable. We should recall 
how Pietro Tradonico (836-64) was the first doge who 
strove to rid the Adriatic of the Dalmatian pirates ; 



36 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

how he saw the great armament he had equipped 
against the Saracens routed at Crotona, and how 
he negotiated the crucial treaty with Lothair. After 
him Orso Badoer I (864-81), in a long quarrel over 
investiture, maintained the religious independence 
of Venice against the Pope. Pietro Tribune (888- 
912), who was the next remarkable doge, repelled 
the Hungarians. At last, with Pietro Candiano IV 
(959-76), we come to a personage whose career an 
eye-witness has described. 

His reign marks another crisis in our story. He 
brought down on the Republic the displeasure of 
Otto II the Emperor who forbade intercourse be- 
tween his subjects and the Venetians, and who had 
planned an invasion when death overtook him. Nor 
was this Doge more happy in the East, where the 
Emperor, John Zimiskes, who happened to be a 
soldier, threatened to destroy the Venetian mer- 
chant marine unless the practice of supplying arms 
and ships to the infidels were stopped. At odds 
with both East and West, Candiano drove his own 
subjects to desperation. He put away his wife and 
married, for the sake of her dower, Hwalderada, 
sister of the Marquis of Tuscany. He kept a large 
guard of foreign mercenaries in his palace. The 
people, suspecting that he intended to establish a 
tyranny, rose in fury, set fire to the palace, and de- 
stroyed it and its occupants, together with St. Mark's 
Church and over three hundred other buildings. 
When the doge, in a frantic effort to escape, rushed 
out through the flames, with his infant son in his 



ii BUILDING THE STATE, 810-1096 37 

arms, the pitiless avengers slew both (976). With 
that as a warning, no subsequent doge played so 
openly for the great stakes of absolutism. 

Fifteen years later, Pietro Orseolo II (991-1008), 
an imposing medieval figure, came to the ducal 
throne. He was one of those statesmen who so 
magnify everything they touch that, as we look 
back, it seems as if they had not merely directed, 
but created issues. Where there is genius, the 
miracle of Moses's rod and the water gushing from 
the rock in Horeb is always repeated. Orseolo 
knew the temper and capacity of his countrymen 
and the actual political condition of Christendom 
through and through : accordingly, he knew how 
far he could safely aggress. The Holy Koman 
Empire being weak, he negotiated with its great 
feudatories in Northern Italy commercial treaties, 
which the Emperor himself confirmed. Venice 
thereby secured trading privileges and set up new 
factories as far as the Alps. Orseolo clashed with 
the Bishops of Belluno and Treviso, and compelled 
them to restore lands belonging to Venice which 
they had seized, and to permit freedom of trade 
along the Sile and the Piave. From the Greek 
Emperor he secured the most advantageous terms, 
some new, others revived. A special tariff for the 
Venetians, a special quarter devoted to them in 
Constantinople, and special laws in their favor, 
such the concessions which Emperor Basil granted 
in his chrysobol in return for the promise of the 
aid of the Venetian fleet whenever he needed it. 



38 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

The Doge went farther and drew up a commercial 
treaty with the Saracens. They might harass the 
Greek Emperor but what of that? The treaty 
assured the continuation of traffic, already lucrative, 
with Sicily, Egypt, and Syria. The interests of 
Venice were not identical with those of the Eastern 
Empire ; why, then, should she quarrel rather than 
trade with her neighbor's enemies ? 

These achievements give the measure of Orseolo's 
extraordinary power as a statesman. His conquest 
of the Dalmatian pirates brought him glory which 
was commemorated yearly until the end of the Re- 
public by one of the most gorgeous pageants ever 
devised. On Ascension Day, in the year 1000, the 
Doge and his captains, after hearing mass, set 
sail with a great fleet. They skirted Istria, whose 
people welcomed them as deliverers ; they made 
festival at Zara and Spalatro, and then they pushed 
on to their real business, the extermination of the 
pirates. Having taken Curzola, they stormed La- 
gosta, the corsairs' capital, and put its inhabitants 
to the sword. Thereafter there was security. 
Orseolo sailed back, victorious and stately, along 
the coast, now untroubled from Ragusa to Istria ; 
and so home, where he was received with great 
rejoicing. 

To have strengthened Venetian trade on the neigh- 
boring mainland, to have cemented friendship with 
both Emperors, who were mutually antagonistic, 
and with the Saracens, whom both hated and the 
Eastern Emperor feared ; and to have bridled the 



ii BUILDING THE STATE, 810-1096 39 

corsairs such the titles to fame of Pietro Orseolo 
the Second, the State-Builder. 

As a preliminary to these conquests abroad, he 
had secured harmony at home. His countrymen 
loved him and regarded the honors that were heaped 
upon him as paid to the Commonwealth. Emperor 
Otto III not only served as godfather to his eldest 
son, but visited Venice incognito, in order to see the 
great man. One son married the sister of King 
Stephen of Hungary, another the niece of the Greek 
Emperor, and his daughter became the wife of the 
King of Croatia. No other contemporary sovereign 
had prouder dynastic connections. But Fate did not 
spare him. He died in his forty-eighth year, worn 
out by his exertions in peace and war, and bereaved 
at the loss by pestilence of large numbers of his 
people and of a son. 

Another son, Otto, succeeded him ; a public-spir- 
ited man, who lacked, however, his father's genius. 
There came reverses not wholly chargeable to him. 
For a brief space the Patriarchate of Grado was 
wrested from Venice a loss not to be borne. But 
the real objection to Otto Orseolo lay in the grow- 
ing suspicion, which envious tongues fostered, that 
he was perpetuating a dynasty. Had the Vene- 
tians in the early days of the doges traversed the 
ambitions of the Galbaii, and later broken loose 
from the dynastic bonds of the Badoeri and Can- 
diani, only to surrender their liberty to the House 
of Orseolo ? They left no doubt as to their 
temper when they seized Doge Otto, shaved his 



40 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

head, and sent him forth an exile to Constanti- 
nople (1026). 

Six years later, under Domenico Flabianico, who 
had been a strenuous opponent of the Orseoli, the 
arrengo decreed that no member of that family 
should thereafter be eligible to hold office; that, 
as a precaution against an hereditary dukedom, 
no doge should be permitted to associate any 
one with him in the dogeship; that two ducal 
councilors should assist the doge in the ordinary 
despatch of business ; and, finally, that in emer- 
gencies or matters of great moment, he should 
request the advice of the chief citizens of the 
Republic. 

These laws, adopted in 1032, fixed immutably the 
place of the doge in the Venetian system. They 
exorcised the dynastic spectre, but they also fore- 
shadowed the coming ascendency of an oligarchy. 
The eight or ten great families or clans, which had 
been striving among themselves for mastery, could 
not suffer that one of their number, through having 
a doge in office, should be lifted above the others ; 
much less that by establishing a dynasty he should 
exclude them from the chance of taking their turn 
on the throne. How these great families originated 
is as uncertain as how they grew ; but that is true 
everywhere. Several of the names most famous 
in the golden age of the Republic appear among 
its earliest records. By the eleventh century the 
ruling families had reached the solution of their 
long contest. Elsewhere in Europe, wherever the 



ii BUILDING THE STATE, 810-1096 41 

monarchical principle prevailed and the crown was 
hereditary, the struggle lay uniformly between the 
crown and the great feudatories; the crown bent 
on restricting, the feudatories bent on maintaining, 
their virtual independence. In the non-monarchical 
Italian cities the contest usually narrowed down 
to two families, of which the victorious set up 
an hereditary despotism. The oligarchy of Venice 
seems to be due to the combination of her elective 
monarchy, her freedom from feudal shackles, and 
her great clans, numerous and strong enough to 
prevent any one of them from permanently overtop- 
ping the rest. The proved impregnability of the 
Eepublic also contributed to this result, by render- 
ing ineffectual every attempt of pretenders to be 
enthroned by foreign aid. 

The tendency toward oligarchy did not, however, 
lessen the popular love of liberty, or the belief of 
the people that they were their own masters. Hil- 
debrand said that the spirit and love of liberty of 
the ancient Romans survived in them. Just what 
part they had in the actual government after the 
eighth century can hardly be determined, but they 
seem to have had a vital part. The arrengo, or 
assembly of all the citizens, was summoned on im- 
portant occasions, and its vote was decisive. Classes 
there were, maggiori, mediocri, and minori, " up- 
per, middle, and lower," but we have no proof 
that they had not equal rights in the assembly. It 
may be suspected that a small body really gov- 
erned the state and elected the doges, and merely 



42 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

announced its plans or candidates for popular con- 
currence. This method would give the people the 
power of veto, which it undoubtedly exercised, but 
that any deception could have been kept up so art- 
fully, generation after generation, that the people 
could not penetrate it, seems unlikely. In study- 
ing the operation of every form of government, we 
must distinguish between theory and practice. In 
theory, for instance, the citizens of more than one 
American city are self-governing ; they go through 
all the forms of a popular election ; they even talk 
vehemently about principles ; but in fact their city 
may be administered by a narrow ring of legal and 
moral criminals, who have never dared to appear 
openly as candidates for office. So the French 
Empire under Napoleon III, or the Prussian King- 
dom under William I, although styled constitu- 
tional, were genuine despotisms. 

If we are puzzled by the paradox that the Vene- 
tians still believed they had a popular government, 
when they really had an oligarchy, we must seek 
for the things behind the names. We must dismiss 
at once the assumption that any nation, least of all 
so high-spirited a nation, could have been politically 
enslaved for centuries without knowing it. The 
oligarchy developed so naturally that all classes 
looked upon it as the best safeguard of the state. 
Popular indignation, fear, or whim exploded against 
many a doge, but no popular revolution ever put 
the oligarchic system in jeopardy. The Venetians 
found it compatible with freedom as they conceived 



ii BUILDING THE STATE, 810-1096 43 

it; and they were satisfied with the thing, whatever 
its name. 

Toward the end of the eleventh century, Venice 
had to cope with a new rival the Normans. 
Those wonderful buccaneers, unscrupulous, greedy, 
and brave, set up their kingdom in Sicily (1072), 
only six years after their kinsmen had conquered 
Saxon England. Their leader, Robert Guiscard, 
passed from Sicily to Southern Italy, and thence to 
Greece, dazzled by a vision of empire which em- 
braced the conquest of both Rome and Constanti- 
nople. The Greek Emperor in alarm asked aid of 
Venice, and Doge Selvo hurried to the rescue with 
a fleet of sixty-three ships. He fell in with the 
Normans at Durazzo, defeated them, and sailed 
home in triumph (1081). Guiscard, however, was 
soon ready for another campaign ; and before the 
Doge could intervene, he routed an army com- 
manded by the Greek Emperor, retook Durazzo, and 
confidently awaited the return of the Venetians. 
Selvo met him near Cephalonia, won two naval 
fights in three days, and imagining that he had dis- 
posed of the Normans, he remained in those waters 
with only a part of his fleet. Handicapped by this 
imprudence, he was utterly routed in a fourth en- 
counter with Guiscard (November, 1084), barely 
escaped to Venice with a remnant of his fleet, and 
quickly abdicated in order to appease the wrath of 
his countrymen. They took it for granted that 
their generals must come back victorious, or not at 
all a stern rule, which makes no allowance for 



44 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP, n 

extenuating circumstances, but which conduces to 
victory. No nation, which has held the doctrine 
that war is an affair in which defeat can be 
extenuated, has ever prospered in war. Fate was 
kind to Venice, for death overtook Robert Guiscard 
(1085) before he could profit by his victory. When 
the Normans and Venetians next met, it was as 
allies in the First Crusade. 



CHAPTER III 

VENICE AND THE CRUSADES 

HISTORY furnishes no parallel to those vast ex- 
peditions against the Moslem on which during the 
next two centuries the Western Christians em- 
barked. Their original object, the liberation of the 
Holy Sepulchre, seems trivial, unless we realize how 
bizarre a medley the religion of the medieval man 
had become. It contained a little ethical teaching, 
a great deal of dogma, and a much larger share of 
magic ; and it was by the magic in the form of 
miracles, portents, holy relics, amulets, charms, 
incantations that it touched multitudes of the 
semicivilized, and consequently superstitious, who 
were too dull to be moved by moral precepts and 
too ignorant to understand dogma. Magic for 
magic, what else in the whole world could compare 
with the very tomb in which the Saviour had lain ? 
Given the credulity, what more logical than to 
strive to recover that spell-working marvel ? If 
medieval sages spent their lives in search of the 
Philosopher's Stone and the Elixir of Youth, should 
not kings and lords do as much to win something 
infinitely more potent than any elixir ? 

Some historians regard the Crusades as an episode 
45 



46 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

in that greatest of world-dramas the ancient 
conflict between Asia and Europe; the unending 
struggle, in which the wars between Greece and 
Persia, and between Rome and Carthage ; the 
Saracenic conquest of Spain and Sicily; the Cru- 
sades ; the expulsion of the Moors from Spain and 
the planting of the Turks in Europe, marked 
each a crisis, but brought no conclusion. The 
Crusaders themselves, we may be sure, were not 
conscious of playing in such a drama. Even the 
religious motive was not so simple to them as it 
seems to us. With their zeal to redeem the Holy 
Sepulchre were bound up grievances, political 
ambitions, commercial hopes, desire of vengeance 
and of destroying the Mahometan power which had 
for four hundred years harassed Christendom or 
kept it in constant alarm, the power which pro- 
faned the holy places by possessing them, the 
power whose frontier checked the Christians when- 
ever they wished to advance east or south. 

These causes, and others more obscure, prepared 
the emotions of Christians to leap into action at 
Peter the Hermit's call. The quick response from 
every part of Western Europe showed an emotional 
solidarity which has had no equal, either in depth 
or extent, in the record of religious revivals, pious 
manias, and popular zealotries. Venice alone, of the 
states best able to respond, held back, not because 
she was less religious than her neighbors, but be- 
cause she had traded with the Saracens too long to 
regard them as necessary enemies, and her career 



in VENICE AND THE CRUSADES 47 

as a commercial nation had taught her to count the 
cost before plunging into any enterprise. 

So the Venetian government waited until the 
news came that the Christians had taken Jerusa- 
lem (1099). Then they fitted out a fleet, and Doge 
Yitale Michiel I embarked with an enthusiastic 
army for the Holy Land. More than religious zeal 
now urged them on, for they foresaw that Chris- 
tian conquests in the Orient would open a great 
field for commerce. They resolved that this field 
should be theirs, and they had the satisfaction of 
believing that in serving God they were enriching 
their Kepublic. 

Before ever they caught sight of a hostile turban, 
however, they were tangled in a snarl of political 
complications. The Greek Emperor, nominal suze- 
rain of Palestine, frowned on the expedition of the 
Latin Christians, which bade fair to deprive him of 
even this empty title. He endeavored to dissuade 
the Venetians from joining the Crusaders; failing 
in that, he hired a fleet of Pisan galle}^ to fall on 
the Venetians unawares. Doge Michiel suspected 
treachery, surprised the Pisans at Rhodes, destroyed 
their armament, and then proceeded to Jaffa. At 
his coming the Crusaders rejoiced, and with his help 
set about reducing the port of Haifa. 

During more than twenty years following, there 
was seldom a season when ships flying the banner 
of St. Mark did not actively aid the Christians iu 
Syria. Among their many exploits, none exceeded 
in picturesqueness the capture of Tyre, by Doge 



48 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

Domenico Michiel (1124). The Crusaders being in 
doubt whether to lay siege to Tyre or to Ascalon, 
let fortune decide it, and an " innocent orphan boy " 
drew out of an urn the lot marked " Tyre." Before 
the siege began the Barons of the kingdom of Jeru- 
salem promised that the Venetians should thence- 
forth have in every city of the kingdom a bakery, 
a bath, a market, and a free quarter; that wherever 
the Venetians went, their own law should follow 
them, and their own weights and measures be used ; 
that they should be exempt from taxation; that 
when Tyre and Ascalon, or either, were conquered, 
a third of each city should belong to the Venetians ; 
and that the King of Jerusalem should pay to 
Venice an annual tribute of three hundred bezants. 
Thrifty, indeed, were the honest sons of Venice in 
serving their Lord ! But we must remark that 
neither the standard of the age nor their own con- 
sciences saw anything inconsistent in this com- 
bination of Crusading and business. The modern 
land-grabber shocks our moral sense by his hypoc- 
risy; being wholly bent on worshiping Mammon, 
he tries to hoodwink us with his pious blarney about 
devotion to God's work. The moral sense of the 
Crusaders, on the other hand, had not been quick- 
ened beyond the point where for a Christian to kill 
or to enslave an infidel, and to seize his property, 
was adjudged a most worthy Christian act. The 
day -was still far off when Christians should an- 
nounce that they slew and looted for the good of 
their victims. 



in VENICE AND THE CRUSADES 49 

The Venetians may not have been more scrupu- 
lous than their allies, yet they certainly allowed 
none to excel them in practicing honor as they 
conceived it. Listen to a story of their conduct at 
this very siege of Tyre : " One day it happened," 
says Martino da Canale, "that the Barons heard 
the report that the pagans were corning to succor 
those of Tyre. They told the Doge of it, and he 
said to them, ' Never fear, the city cannot defend 
itself so that we shall not take it.' ' In God's 
name, Sir Doge,' said one of the Barons, ' you have 
your fleet ready, and so you are not afraid to be 
here ; for if the pagans come, you will quickly em- 
bark and sail away.' When the Doge heard that, 
he at once commanded the Venetians that the whole 
fleet should be drawn ashore; and the Venetians 
obeyed the command of the Doge. And when the 
Doge saw the fleet on shore, he ordered that a plank 
should at once be knocked out of the bottom of each 
vessel. And when the Barons of France saw the 
fleet of the Venetians scuttled, they felt sure that 
the Doge and the Venetians would have no wish to 
depart thence without them." 

Tyre, after a brave resistance, had to surrender, 
" only five measures of wheat left in all the city," 
and thereupon the Venetians set up their rule in 
the stipulated third. In other cities of the Cru- 
saders' kingdom they settled on equally sovereign 
terms, and appropriated now one island in the 
^Egean and now another, the beginnings of a 
colonial empire which, if we measure it by the 

E 



50 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

industrial and mechanical resources of the age in 
which it flourished, surpassed even the modern 
British. 

The First Crusade, which they were the tardiest 
to join, left on their destiny the deepest mark. 
From traders in the Levant they became political 
owners, with the responsibility of governing and 
defending their new possessions, and with the cer- 
tainty that to keep what they had got would 
involve conquering more. They had desired com- 
merce only, but commerce led them to empire, 
which they assumed reluctantly; protesting that, 
in order to hold their own against their great 
rivals, the Pisans and the Genoese, they must 
secure the richest concessions in the Orient. Were 
the men of Venice really more unselfish than the 
greedy, enterprising men of Genoa and Pisa ? 

The First Crusade seemed to portend the break- 
ing up of the Saracenic power in the Levant, and 
the three maritime cities of Italy, Pisa, Genoa, and 
Venice, Amalfi being already past meridian, 
were vigorous rivals for its wealth. Centuries later, 
Spain, France, Portugal, and England competed for 
mastery of the New World and of India; and just 
as England, after a long and varying struggle, van- 
quished her competitors, so in the end did Venice. 
This competition is another element in her politi- 
cal life, which was constantly operative from 1100 
to about 1400. Sometimes the rivalry intensified 
into war ; at almost all times it was an irritation ; 
and often any one of the rivals plundered without 



in VENICE AND THE CRUSADES 51 

scruple the argosies of another, if he caught them 
unprotected. 

Her prowess at the siege of Tyre gave Venice 
great prestige, and she could say without boasting, 
a quarter of a century after the First Crusade, that 
she had reaped a richer harvest than all her com- 
panions in that strange enterprise, and had taken 
steps to assure increasing prosperity from her 
Oriental colonies. But nearer home she had suf- 
fered grave reverses. King Stephen of Hungary, 
seeking an outlet to the Adriatic, swept down the 
Dalmatian coast and seized many of the ports which 
had by this time become vassals of the Republic. 
Doge Ordelaffo Falier set out to recover them, but 
was killed in battle at Zara (1118), and his suc- 
cessor, Domenico Michiel, deemed it necessary to 
accept a five years' truce from the Hungarians. 
Venice soon perceived, however, that unless she con- 
trolled the eastern shore of the Adriatic, she could 
not hold her distant Oriental possessions, and that 
her very existence would be precarious. Always 
keen to see her dominant interest, she knew the 
folly of pursuing far-off glories at such a cost. 
Doge Michiel delayed hardly a week after the sur- 
render of Tyre before leading his fleet on a new 
campaign. He first devastated Greece and the 
Archipelago as a punishment for the Greek Emperor, 
who had abetted the Hungarians, and then he sailed 
up the Adriatic, recovered the Dalmatian fiefs, and 
returned home to enjoy such a triumph as had not 
been seen at St. Mark's since the days of Orseolo 



52 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

the Great. When he died, his countrymen carved 
his epitaph, " Terror Grcecorum jacet hie," and his- 
tory has justly ranked him among the foremost of 
the doges. His reign confirmed to Venice the mas- 
tery of the Adriatic ; it loosed almost to the point 
of emancipation her traditional allegiance to the 
Eastern Empire ; it won for her merchants in the 
Orient conditions so advantageous that soon her 
chief interests lay there. 

Looking back over the career of any nation we 
find continuity, inevitableness, the rack-and-pinion 
sequence of cause and effect, which may have been 
only dimly suspected, or not perceived at all, by 
contemporaries while the history was making ; that 
is the illusion the logical instinct, from which we 
can no more escape than from our temperament, 
weaves for us. So a passion for logical com- 
pleteness often leads us to attribute a fixity of 
purpose which historic personages themselves never 
wittingly obeyed. Oftener still, we profess a 
knowledge of motives which lie quite beyond veri- 
fication. After all, if this is a rational world, 
where shall we seek for proof of its rationality save 
in human history? And if there be gaps in the 
evidence, as frequently there are, shall we not 
bridge them by reasonable conjectures ? Crude 
fact or shrewd presumption will alike avail little, 
unless we learn to think of past times and past 
men as present and alive; as plastic, too, swayed 
by passion and whim as well as by conscious re- 
solve ; with to-niorrow still before them, to-morrow 



in VENICE AND THE CRUSADES 53 

big with possibilities, as free as air for any will to 
fly in, not adamantine, unchangeable, fatal, as is 
time past. 

Domenico Michiel's achievements really marked 
a stage in the expansion of Venice, but the issues 
which seein to us to have been predetermined dur- 
ing his reign were living issues for two generations 
after him. The breach with Constantinople wid- 
ened. An emergency the efforts of Koger II of 
Sicily to conquer the Ionian Islands and Greece 
brought the Doge and Emperor Manuel together 
for a while, and a Venetian fleet worsted the Nor- 
mans and helped to relieve Corfu; but the Vene- 
tians did not disguise their contempt for the 
Emperor, even though he was their ally, nor did 
they hesitate to make a profitable peace with Koger, 
even though he had been recently their foe (1148). 

At odds with the Eastern Empire, Venice became 
embroiled with the Western, whose sovereign, 
Frederick Barbarossa, dreamed of realizing the old 
dream of Imperial supremacy throughout Italy. 
Under his inefficient predecessors the popes had 
pushed forward their temporal power, and the 
cities, especially in the north, had almost broken 
away from the sense of feudal "obligations, at the 
expense of the Emperor's prestige. The cities 
withstood bravely Frederick's first acts of coercion, 
and they supported the claims of Pope Alexander 
III against the antipopes whom Frederick's faction 
elected to the Holy See (1159). The statesmen of 
Venice, with traditional tact, understood that Fred- 



54 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

erick was much more to be feared than their neigh- 
bors on the mainland, and so they sided with the 
cities and the Pope. Frederick set Padua, Verona, 
and Ferrara against the Republic, and they re- 
sponded willingly, because for them Venetian ambi- 
tion was a constant menace. He also found a ready 
coadjutor in the Patriarch of Aquileia, who attacked 
and expelled the Patriarch of Grado. That insult 
exasperated the Venetians. They easily overcame 
the Patriarch and the lords of Friuli behind him, 
and thenceforth every year Venice received from 
Aquileia a tribute of twelve hogs and eleven loaves, 
the hogs to commemorate the Patriarch and his 
bishops, the loaves to symbolize the barons. In 
their sarcasm, the children of the Lagoon were 
vigorous, but coarse. 

Whilst Frederick Barbarossa was tarrying beyond 
the Alps till he could collect a sufficient army and 
find a favorable moment for descending on the Lom- 
bard League of cities, Manuel, the Eastern Emperor, 
struck an unexpected blow at Venice (March 7, 
1171). He ordered that all Venetians within his 
Empire should be arrested and imprisoned and 
their property confiscated. If the statistics we have 
can be at all relied on, Constantinople alone being 
credited with two hundred thousand Venetian in- 
habitants, this edict affected more persons than 
the entire home population of the Republic then 
numbered. When the news of the affront reached 
Venice, there was a furious demand for vengeance, 
which the government proceeded to satisfy by equip- 



in VENICE AND THE CRUSADES 55 

ping post-haste a great armament. To provide 
means, they taxed the population one per cent, of 
their net income, issued bonds bearing four per 
cent, interest, and created the first funded debt in 
Europe. In a hundred days they had ready a fleet 
of one hundred and twenty ships and thirty trans- 
ports, which sailed down the Adriatic manned by 
crews full of hope and rage. Their admiral, Doge 
Vitale Michiel, instead of making straight for the 
Golden Horn, ill-advisedly waited in Negropont, 
whilst an embassy bore his ultimatum to the Em- 
peror. Manuel simply seized the ambassadors and 
threw them into prison, gaining so much time by 
the delay that Michiel concluded to winter at Schio, 
so as to be sure of a better season before attacking 
Manuel in his capital. Spring had not come, how- 
ever, before the plague infected his forces. They 
died by thousands, and the remnant, barely a tenth 
of those who had set out, returned to Venice in the 
early spring, bringing with them the plague instead 
of victory. The Venetians, maddened by this 
scourge and by the military disaster, for both of 
which they held the Doge accountable, killed him. 
Their commanders must win, or die. 

This popular outburst marked another change in 
the constitution of the Republic. Hitherto, the 
doge had been elected in a general assembly of all 
the citizens, or at least the appearance of an open 
election was kept up. But beginning with Sebas- 
tian Ziani, in 1172, the choosing of the doge became 
the perquisite of the aristocracy. Each of the six 



56 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE < HAP. 

quarters or sestieri of the city named t\vo repre- 
sentatives; each, of these pairs named forty of the 
notables of their sestiere, and the four hundred and 
eighty persons, or Great Council, thus selected 
chose the doge. Every year at Michaelmas the 
Great Council renewed itself through a nominat- 
ing committee composed of its own members. The 
people were practically disfranchised, being allowed 
to vote for only the original two representatives from 
each sestiere. They rebelled against this usurpation 
of -their rights, and forced the aristocracy to concede 
that the populace should assemble, after the Grand 
Council had voted, and that the new doge should be 
presented to them with the words, "This is your 
doge, if it please you." Their assent came to be 
taken for granted until the custom of asking it died 
out. 

As usual, the tactful statesmen of Venice knew 
how to keep the substance and let the shadow go. 
In their remodeling, they intended not only to steady 
the government by putting it out of the reach of 
popular gusts, but also to curtail the powers of the 
doge ; which they did by depriving him of many of 
his prerogatives, and by increasing to six the number 
of ducal councilors, whose business it was to keep 
him within the strict limits of the law. This was 
the third and final stage in the development of the 
dogeship. The Venetians had formerly taken care 
that their ruler should be neither despotic nor 
dynastic; now they set their wills against his being 
an autocrat. As they deprived him of power, they 



in VENICE AND THE CRUSADES 57 

added pomp. The merchant aristocracy began openly 
to govern the state. 

On Ziani, the first doge of the new order, fell the 
burden of ransoming his imprisoned countrymen by 
paying the Eastern Emperor a million and a half 
sequins. He avoided open hostilities with Freder- 
ick Barbarossa, and withdrew from the Lombard 
League. The battle of Legnano (1176), in which 
Barbarossa was overwhelmed by the League, left 
Venice in the happy position of a neutral ; and the 
following year, when the Pope and the Emperor 
agreed to meet and discuss a peace, they chose 
Venice for their rendezvous. It was fitting that 
the Republic, which had preserved its independ- 
ence of Church and State alike, should now act 
as their host and mediator. The magnificence of 
the hospitality which Venice gave them dazzled 
the imagination of their contemporaries, and many 
legends grew out of the story of that summer. But 
the facts of the meeting, in which the forces of the 
medieval world seemed for a moment to be at con- 
cord, transcend the embellishments of fiction. The 
truce between Empire and Church could not be 
permanent; the turn of fortune's wheel would 
inevitably bring Venice into conflict now with the 
Pope and now with the Emperor : but the Doge 
had been host and arbiter for both, without ac- 
knowledging himself the man of either. 

Very soon after this the last thread which bound 
Venice to the Eastern Empire was cut. Friendship 
had long given way to hatred, and the early alle- 



58 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

glance, never more than formal, was disavowed. The 
Venetians resented the indignities which Emperor 
Manuel heaped on their countrymen in 1171 ; the 
disaster which overwhelmed Doge Michiel, and the 
ransom which Doge Ziaui paid perforce, rankled: 
but as they were a people who could long nurse a 
grievance in silence, they resumed their commercial 
relations with .Constantinople and said nothing, 
biding their time. The Byzantines, on their side, 
construing the victory which chance gave them 
as proof of their military superiority, indulged their 
propensity for superciliousness. For generations 
they had looked upon the sturdy, rough-shod Vene- 
tian merchants much as other races in the nineteenth 
century looked upon the Britisher, whose trade could 
not be stopped, although his ill-mannered master- 
fulness made him personally insufferable. 

The occasion which brought the final rupture was 
a new Crusade. The Saracens under Saladin having 
reduced the Christians in Syria to desperate straits, 
Fulk of Neuilly-sur-Marne went through France ex- 
horting the faithful to hasten to their rescue, and a 
new pope, Innocent III, offered indulgences and his 
blessing to all who should listen to Fulk's appeal. 
The Barons of France and Flanders were stirred to 
take the Cross, under the leadership of Thibaut, 
Count of Champagne, and of Louis, Count of Blois, 
two nephews of the king. In the company were 
Simon de Montfort and Renaud de Montmirail, 
Godfrey de Joinville, Walter de Brienne, Macaire 
de Sainte-Menehould, Renaud de Dampierre, Mat- 



in VENICE AND THE CRUSADES 59 

thieu de Montmorency, Conon de Bethune, and 
Godfrey de Ville-Hardouin, Marshal of Champagne, 
the flower of medieval French nobility, whose 
names, like old damask, gorgeous though faded, call 
up associations of valor and romance. They de- 
spatched six messengers to Venice to bargain for 
transportation to the Land-beyond-the-Sea. The 
doge at that time was Enrico Daudolo, in all re- 
spects one of the greatest of medieval figures, and 
physically one of the most remarkable men of whom 
there is any record. A typical Venetian, he had 
had the widest experience of affairs as merchant, 
as ambassador, as soldier, as councilor, and now as 
doge ; prudent, shrewd, resourceful, and, despite his 
eighty-nine years, indomitable and energetic ; dim- 
eyed almost to blindness, but erect, handsome, vigor- 
ous, and hardy. Dandolo was the twelfth-century 
version of the Homeric Odysseus. 

He received the embassy cordially, and after 
eight days' deliberation replied that Venice would 
furnish transports for 4500 horses and 9000 squires, 
and ships for 4500 knights and 20,000 foot soldiers, 
with nine months' provisions, at the rate of four 
marks per horse and two marks per man, or 85,000 
marks in all. The envoys accepted the terms, 
which Dandolo summoned the citizens to ratify. A 
vast concourse gathered in St. Mark's Church, 
where, after mass had been celebrated, Godfrey of 
Ville-Hardouin addressed them. "'Sirs,' he said, 
' the most exalted and puissant of the Barons of 
France have sent us to you, and they beg your favor, 



60 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

that you may be seized with pity for Jerusalem, 
which is in bondage to the unbelievers, and that 
for God's sake you will consent to aid them to 
avenge the shame of Jesus Christ. And they have 
chosen you because they know that no people on 
the sea has so great power as you. And they bade 
us to fall at your feet, and not to rise until you 
grant that you will have pity on the Holy Land 
beyond the sea.' Then the six messengers knelt at 
their feet, weeping much ; and the Doge and all the 
others began to weep for the pity which they had, 
and they cried out all in one voice, and lifted their 
hands and said, ' We grant it ! we grant it ! ' Then 
there was so great a noise and so great an uproar 
that it seemed indeed as if the earth quaked." l 

This dramatic scene, typical of the Crusading 
epoch, with its mingling of piety and hard-headed 
business, took place in March, 1201. Yille-Hardouin 
and his companions sped back to France to report 
that by St. John's Day, 1202, Venice would be 
ready. 

At the appointed time, however, only a part of 
the Crusaders had come to Venice; the rest, dis- 
regarding the contract which the envoys had 
accepted in their name, either chose other routes 
to the East or renounced the Crusade altogether. 
The prospective leader, Thibaut of Champagne, was 
dead; Boniface, Marquis of Montferrat, succeeded 
him, and he and the Barons who kept their tryst 

1 Ville-Hardouin : De la Conqueste de Constantinoble (Paris, 
1838), pp. 8-9. 



m VENICE AND THE CRUSADES 61 

paid to the Doge their share of the stipulated sum 
and blushed at their comrades' faithlessness. The 
Venetians were reluctant to claim their bond with- 
out a fair delay, and so spring grew into summer, 
while all waited in the hope that the requisite men 
and money would turn up. The Crusaders' camp 
on the Lido became a den of gamesters, harlots, and 
mountebanks, where the soldiery squandered their 
health and morals; disease took off many, and 
many deserted. Yet thirty-four thousand of the 
eighty-five thousand marks still remained unpaid. 
The collapse of the expedition seemed imminent. 

The Venetians were beginning to lose patience, 
when Doge Dandolo bethought him of an arrange- 
ment by which they might recover what they had 
spent without forcing the Barons to forfeit, as the 
letter of the contract permitted, the fifty-one thou- 
sand marks already paid. For along while past the 
kings of Hungary had coveted Dalmatia, and since 
1173 they had held Zara. Dandolo now said to his 
countrymen that, while they might legally confiscate 
the Crusaders' instalments, such sharpness would be 
generally blamed ; he proposed, instead, to offer to 
remit the remainder on condition that the Crusaders 
should agree to aid the Venetians in reconquering 
Zara, on their way to Palestine. The Barons of 
France, after much controversy among themselves, 
accepted the terms, and again St. Mark's Church 
witnessed a great ceremony, in which the climax was 
reached when Dandolo mounted the pulpit and 
declared, in tones which smote the multitude to 



62 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

tears : " I am an aged man and a feeble, and I need 
repose, and my body is infirm ; but I see none in our 
people who, better than I, could lead you and fight. 
If you permit my son to stay at home in my place, 
to guard and govern the country, I will now take the 
Cross and will go with you to live or die, whichever 
God shall have ordained for me." " We agree ! " 
shouted the multitude, " and in God's name we pray 
you, dear Sire, to take the Cross and come with us." 1 

In this wise the Venetians themselves became 
Crusaders and embarked with the Barons of France 
and Flanders on the Fourth Crusade. They planned 
first to reduce Zara, and then to push on to the 
Land-bey ond-the-Sea, where the Venetians and their 
allies should divide all conquests, share and share 
alike. On October 8, 1202, more than three months 
later than the date first set, the great fleet weighed 
anchor. It consisted of fifty galleys, equipped by 
the Republic, sixty transports, sixty long ships, and 
one hundred and ten transports for horses. True it 
was that no other maritime power could have fitted 
out such an armament. 

That an expedition of Christians, organized to 
war on Saracens, should make the subjugation of 
other Christians its first object, was too anomalous 
to escape criticism, even in that time of uncertain 
morals. Early in the summer, Cardinal Peter of 
Capua had inveighed against the project, threaten- 
ing that if the Crusaders persisted, they would incur 
the highest Papal censure. Some of the French con- 
i Ville-Hardouiu, p. 21. 



in VENICE AND THE CRUSADES 63 

tingent wished to heed the Cardinal, but whether 
because they felt religious compunction or welcomed 
any excuse for withdrawing from an enterprise they 
had tired of, who can say ? Most of them, however, 
readily accepted Dandolo's argument when he told 
them that it would be most rash to leave behind 
them in the Adriatic an enemy who could cut off 
their communications. The plea of " military exi- 
gency " sufficed then, as it always does ; and, more- 
over, war being their trade, the Crusaders were not 
too particular as to whom they fought with, so long 
as the sport were brisk and their hope of victory 
and spoils were large. The Venetians further 
showed their independence of the Pope by inform- 
ing Cardinal Peter that he might accompany the 
expedition as a private Crusader, but not as a Papal 
legate. 

We need waste little time in condemning the per- 
version of this Crusade from its original holy pur- 
pose of killing Saracens and confiscating their land. 
The best of the Crusades, judged by rudimentary 
morals, was iniquity ill-disguised. But on the other 
hand, it does not appear that the Venetians acted 
disingenuously, nor fell a hair's breadth below the 
highest mark of honor as then conceived. The Papal 
protest might indicate a higher code did we not re- 
member that then as now Popes launched their so- 
called spiritual thunderbolts for political rather than 
moral ends. To the Venetians, especially, the Pope 
was not a religious head so much as a wily political 
adversary. And, after all, for Crusader to prey on 



64 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

Crusader did not necessarily rouse medieval Popes 
to wrath; witness the recent quarrel of Philip 
Augustus, Richard I, and their associates in the 
Third Crusade. At the outset, when the Barons of 
France requested transportation, Venice stood in 
the same relation that a modern steamship company 
stands toward a missionary board wishing to secure 
passage for a cargo of missionaries. She fulfilled 
her part of the contract by having ships and provi- 
sions ready at the appointed time; and when the 
Barons failed in theirs, she obligingly allowed them 
to save the money which she might have claimed as 
forfeit, on condition that they should serve her. 
Dandolo and his countrymen did not come within 
the jurisdiction of the Holy See until they them- 
selves took the Cross ; but even then, true Vene- 
tians that they were, they paid slight reverence to 
Papal commands. 

The expedition which embarked under such am- 
biguous circumstances came in due time to Zara, 
which, although reputed one of the strongest cities 
in Christendom, quickly fell before the superior en- 
gines and forces of the Crusaders. "\Vinter being 
now at hand, the Venetians proposed to stay there, 
where their ships had a safe haven; the Franks 
unwillingly complied. A new temptation soon 
arose to turn the Crusaders a second fame away 
from their original plan. Alexis, the son of Isaac 
Comnenos, the deposed Greek Emperor, appeared at 
Zara and besought the allies to restore his father to 
his throne. This had plainly nothing to do with 



in VENICE AND THE CRUSADES 65 

punishing wicked Saracens ; but the unfortunate 
youth inspired pity, and as he promised, in his 
father's name, that he would not only heal the schism 
between the Latin and Greek Churches, but also pay 
the cost of the fleet and army for a year, give a sub- 
sidy of two hundred thousand marks for the war 
against the Soldan, and himself lead an army of ten 
thousand men to that war and maintain perpetually 
a guard of five hundred knights in the Holy Land 
against all these inducements the Signors of 
Venice and the Barons of France could not hold 
out. Might they not in honesty declare that, by se- 
curing a zealous coadjutor at Constantinople, they 
were taking the very best means to strengthen the 
Christians in Syria ? Yet the decision caused dis- 
cord. The White Friars, through their spokes- 
man, the Abbot of Vaux, denounced the scheme 
as wicked. Pope Innocent, who had so vehemently 
condemned the assault on Zara before it happened, 
pardoned the Franks for that iniquity, but bade them 
beware of committing another. Some of the pil- 
grims abandoned the expedition ; but the main body 
of the allies held together, and in the spring pro- 
ceeded to Constantinople. 

We are not concerned here to follow the military 
operations, nor the snarled skein of political in- 
trigues, during the Latin conquest of the Eastern 
Empire. That story, checkered with heroic ex- 
ploits, with cowardice, with chicane, with cruelty, 
can still be best read in the quaint" pages of Yille- 
Hardouin. The expedition differed in no respect 



66 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

except its larger scale from Norman William's con- 
quest of Saxon England, or a foray on the Scottish 
border, or any other act of banditry. The Crusaders 
salved their consciences, as Norman William had 
salved his, by insisting that they were engaged on 
the pious mission of ousting a usurper ; but when 
they had deposed the usurper, the legitimate ruler 
whom they restored would not or could not pay the 
price agreed on. After waiting until their patience 
gave out, they flung down an ultimatum which he 
could not satisfy. A revolution broke out in the 
palace ; there was a frantic attempt, by the upstart 
Murzuphle, to overwhelm the Latins, quickly fol- 
lowed by their rally and complete victory, which 
left them masters of Constantinople and of the 
Eastern Empire (April 12, 1204). 

A triumph so dazzling has rarely been chroni- 
cled. The Crusaders numbered at the most forty 
thousand men, while Constantinople, a city which 
had never surrendered to an enemy, had, according 
to a plausible estimate, four hundred thousand in- 
habitants capable of bearing arms. Before the final 
capture, for twenty-one months, during which defeat 
meant annihilation, the Latins maintained them- 
selves against such odds. Grant that the Greek 
Emperors proved incompetent and cowardly, and 
that their miscellaneous troops there were Eng- 
lish and even Danes among them ran away at 
the critical moment, nevertheless the valor of the 
Crusaders was as conspicuous as their audacity and 
their fortitude. Well might Ville-Hardouin believe 



in VENICE AND THE CRUSADES 67 

that never since the world was created had so great 
an affair been undertaken by any people. One epi- 
sode out of a myriad shines after seven centuries. 
At the first attack from the harbor, Doge Dandolo 
stood on the prow of his galley, armed cap-a-pie, 
the gonfalon of St. Mark before him, the garrison 
showering arrows and stones from the city walls ; 
and the Doge cried out to his men that if they did 
not quickly put him ashore he would chastise them. 
They obeyed, and after a little while the gonfalon 
of St. Mark flew from one of the city towers. 

In the destruction of the Greek Empire, Venice 
had her retribution for the humiliation which she 
and her merchants had suffered, and Dandolo him- 
self had a personal revenge, if it be true that when 
he once went on a mission to Stamboul, the Emperor, 
to show his contempt for Venice, threw him into 
prison. To justify this final perversion of the Cru- 
sade might worry even a Jesuit master of casuistry ; 
and yet Innocent III, who of all the popes most 
deserved to be called Leo, Innocent, who had 
disapproved, chidden, and excommunicated, in vain, 
discovered that it would be politic to accept the 
results of an expedition which he had step by step 
condemned. " The designs of Providence are im- 
penetrable," he wrote the conquerors. " You acted 
unjustly ; but the Greeks had sinned and, to punish 
them, God made use of you. Since this land has 
thus fallen to you as a judgment, we believe that 
we may authorize you to keep it. If you govern 
justly, if you bring the peoples into our holy com- 



68 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

munion, if you restore the goods of the Church, if 
you are penitent, and, above all else, if you persist 
in the fulfilling of your vow, we hope God will 
pardon you." 1 Thus could the mightiest of the 
popes condone a great public crime by construing 
it as an act of divine justice. The formula is still 
popular and fits every case. 

The Venetians were unquestionably the backbone 
of the expedition. While their allies lacked leader- 
ship and quarreled among themselves, or floundered 
irresolute between two policies, they were united 
under their redoubtable Doge, and never feared to do 
the thing they resolved on. There is no evidence 
that the campaign against the Eastern Emperor was 
in their original intention. They meant merely to 
recover Zara; beyond that, they trusted to chance 
to repay them for equipping their fifty galleys. 
Their interest demanded that they should make 
a great show of power in the Orient, where their 
fame had lately been somewhat dimmed. Chance, 
in which they confided, rewarded them beyond all 
expectations, almost crushing them by her excessive 
bounty, as the Sabines crushed Tarpeia. The sack 
of Constantinople alone amounted in portable loot 
to eighty million francs, of which the Venetians 
had their moiety. 

After gorging their lusts and their greed, the 
Crusaders had to establish a government to replace 

1 Quoted by Daru, Storia di Venezia (Capolago, 1837), I, 
280. The vow was, of course, to drive the Saracens out of 
Palestine. 



nr VENICE AND THE CRUSADES 69 

that which they had swept away. Dandolo having 
declined to be a candidate for Emperor, the choice 
lay between Baldwin of Flanders and Boniface of 
Montferrat. The former was elected, to the satis- 
faction, perhaps Avith the connivance, of the Vene- 
tians. According to agreement, Tommaso Morosini 
was elected patriarch; but the previous consent 
of the Pope had not been obtained, and Innocent 
sternly denounced this infringement on his apos- 
tolic jurisdiction ; then he deemed it prudent to con- 
firm an election which he could not annul. 

In the partition of the Empire, the Emperor re- 
ceived a fourth part, the Venetians and the other 
Crusaders sharing equally the other three parts. 
The Venetians saw to it that their allotment should 
include the islands and coasts most accessible to 
their commerce. The Cyclades and the Sporades, 
the Ionian archipelago, Negropont, Crete, the east- 
ern shores of the Adriatic, the coasts of Thessaly, 
of the Sea of Marmora, and of the Black Sea, with 
ports in the Morea, made an uninterrupted chain from 
Venice to Trebizond. The destiny of the Kepublic 
seemed assured. But the new Emperor had scarcely 
been enthroned before he and his allies were called 
out to block the advance of Bulgarians and Comans, 
a portent of a struggle in which the Christians were 
at last to succumb. Amid these first ominous troubles 
Dandolo, fresh from battle, died at the age of ninety- 
four (June 14, 1205). They buried him with great 
pomp in the Church of St. Sophia, and many years 
later, when the Empire which he had wrested from 



70 A SHORT' HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP, m 

the Greeks had fallen a spoil to the Turk, Sultan 
Mohammed II allowed the casque and cuirass and 
sword of the warrior Doge to be returned to his de- 
scendants in Venice. There could be no fitter relics 
of indomitable Enrico Dandolo. 



CHAPTER IV 
IMPERIAL GROWTH THE GREAT RIVAL, 1205-64 

THE Latin conquest of Constantinople was as 
unexpected as that of India by the British, as un- 
premeditated as the discovery and acquisition of 
the Xew World by Spain. When such immense re- 
sults are brought about so casually, shall we argue 
that not law, but caprice determines our human lot ? 
The event assuredly lies beyond man's foresight ; 
but what he makes of it depends upon himself. 
The Venetians had gone out in quest of commerce : 
when they suddenly found themselves partners in 
an empire, instead of being bewildered, they pro- 
ceeded with their characteristic shrewdness to re- 
adjust their system to the new demands. Never were 
conquerors more keen to discern their real interests 
and to let the rest go. Their Doge might have been 
Emperor, but they could not be allured by an empty 
title which carried with it the most arduous respon- 
sibilities. While Baldwin and his successors were 
wearing themselves out in quelling revolts at home 
and in resisting foreign invaders, the Venetians 
would pursue their vast commercial enterprises unin- 
terruptedly. They virtually made the Eastern Em- 
peror bear the burden of government, while they 
71 



72 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

reaped the profits. The enormous special privileges 
which they enjoyed in the great cities; the marts, 
factories, and trading posts which they controlled 
throughout the Levant ; and the lands and islands 
which they took as their share in the partition, con- 
stituted an empire based not on military power but 
on commerce an empire to which Great Britain 
alone in later times has had the counterpart. To 
reduce her responsibilities still further, Venice, 
that had never submitted to the feudal system 
herself, created fiefs of her larger possessions and 
assigned them to her grandees, who had to pay 
tribute besides defraying the cost of administration. 
The Dandolo held Andros in fee; Marco Sanudo 
was lord of the Cyclades with the title of Duke 
of the Archipelago ; the Querini ruled over Stampa- 
lia; Marco Venier was Marquis of Cerigo ; Jacopo 
Barozzi had Santorino. For a thousand gold marks 
the Republic bought Candia, one of the most im- 
portant of her territories, from the Marquis of 
Montferrat. She was mistress of Corfu also, until 
1221, when it passed into the hands of the Epirots. 
All that enlightened selfishness or call it po- 
litical foresight could suggest, the Venetians did. 
It is well to remember this in estimating their 
statecraft, because some historians, made wise by 
the sequel, have written as if every one but a fool 
ought to have recognized in 1204 that their con- 
quest of Constantinople would eventually lead, by 
a roundabout road, to the ruin of the Republic. 
The Venetians' perversion of the Fourth Crusade into 



iv IMPERIAL GROWTH 73 

a plundering expedition has absolutely no excuse 
before the bar of justice ; morally it is as detestable 
as the infamous restorations of the Holy Alliance, 
or as any of the British conquests in India, or the 
partition of Poland, or the American invasion of 
Mexico in 1847, or the Prussian thugging of Saxony 
in 1866, or Louis Napoleon's military occupation of 
the States of the Church, or as any other of the 
abominations of which history is full. 

Judged from the standpoint of Venetian self- 
interest in 1204, however, the conquest itself, with 
the new policy which it called for, was fully justi- 
fied. It removed from Constantinople a dynasty 
with which the Venetians had long nursed a sullen 
quarrel. It not only gave them a great advantage 
over their old rivals, the Genoese and the Pisans, 
in ports where they traded in common, but also 
made them masters of a maritime empire which 
promised under their wiser rule to increase rapidly 
in wealth. It exalted their prestige as a nation, 
not merely of merchants and traders, but of war- 
riors and rulers, in an epoch when success in war 
was the general criterion of worth. Moreover, there 
seemed to be no reason why all these immense bene- 
fits, which were self-evident to Dandolo and his 
advisers, might not endure as far in the future as 
any one could look. Until mortals shall be endowed 
with the gift of prophecy, it is unlikely that any 
conquerors will act with more sagacity than the 
Venetians displayed in dealing with the problems 
which confronted them during and immediately 



74 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

after the Fourth Crusade. Only a person afflicted 
with the old Greek dread of a prosperity too con- 
spicuous could have augured ill to the Republic at 
her sudden transformation into an empire. 

If material and political prosperity may be inter- 
preted as a sign of Divine approval, the Venetians 
had every reason to assume throughout the thir- 
teenth century that God was on their side. They 
had wars to wage, of course, for war was almost 
chronic then ; but they ran no serious risk, and 
their victories added to their renown. The new 
problems which the Empire thrust upon them, though 
often intricate, were still evidences of abounding 
vigor tasks well within the reach of a rising 
nation. 

It took several years to establish the Imperial 
system. Every distant town in the Levant must 
have its bailo or local governor, who represented the 
authority and guarded the interests of the mother 
city. There were collectors, inspectors, judges, to 
be appointed, feudatories to be created and overseen, 
and methods to be devised for handling the in- 
creased volume of commerce. When Candia, after 
several years' trial, persisted in rebelling, Venice 
set up a colony there (1211) under the command 
of a duke, confirmed annually, assisted by six cap- 
tains. The colonists, among whom were many 
members of the great families as well as sturdy 
Venetian burghers, received their fiefs on condition 
that they should defend them, and should furnish 
in time of need their quota to the national forces. 



iv IMPERIAL GROWTH 75 

The native Candiots did not quickly outgrow their 
love of independence, but under the Venetian rule 
they prospered as never before, and at last they ac- 
cepted Venice as their country as honestly as Wales 
accepted England. The serious rebellions which 
broke out later in the island were Venetian rather 
than Candiot in intent. 

The shifting to the Orient of the commercial 
centre of gravity produced a danger which Dandolo 
had probably not foreseen. Within less than twenty 
years after the conquest of Constantinople, a party 
arose at Venice to favor the transfer of the capital 
from the Lagoons to the Bosphorus. The proposal 
was urged with such persuasiveness, and its sup- 
porters were so influential and numerous that, when 
put to the test in the Great Council, it was de- 
feated by but a single vote. The facts concerning 
this startling transaction may never be verified ; 
some historians doubt, others deny them ; and yet 
the legend, which is as well authenticated as much 
that passes for history, must have had some real 
foundation, and is therefore worth repeating. 

The Doge, Pietro Ziani, laid before the Great 
Council the reasons for removal. He described the 
magnificent Empire of which Venice had lately be- 
come mistress, Corfu, Canclia, the teeming archi- 
pelagoes of the Ionian and ^Egean seas, the opulent 
sea-coast cities, each a link in the great chain of 
commerce that reached to Constantinople. He 
painted in seductive colors the capital of the East, 
its vastness and wealth, its advantageous position 



76 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

at the meeting of two continents, its unrivaled 
harbor, out of which ships might sail eastward to 
Trebizond and the Crimea, or westward through the 
Mediterranean to the Atlantic and Farthest Thule. 
He contrasted the ease of life there with the diffi- 
culties at Venice, where so much energy had to be 
spent merely in preserving the scanty soil on. which 
their homes were built, or in keeping open the 
shifting channels, the arteries of their city's exist- 
ence; where the canals exhaled a fetid air, and 
earthquake or flood might at any moment over- 
whelm the city. Venice depended for her daily 
food on the people of the mainland, who were not 
her people, and who, if they became her enemies, 
might cause her to starve. At Constantinople food 
abounded. But above all, since every one recog- 
nized that the Levant held the sources of Venetian 
wealth, common prudence warned them to settle 
where they could oversee and enjoy, and, if need 
were, defend their possessions. The Adriatic meant 
three hundred leagues of unnecessary carriage for 
their cargoes a voyage which storms or pirates 
might interrupt, and which, if prosperous,' con- 
sumed time and food. It took no longer to sail 
from Constantinople to Candia than from Venice 
to Corfu. The Latin Empire was so weak that it 
might at any time fall a prey to a conqueror hostile 
to Venice, or the great population of Venetians at 
Constantinople might seize the city and break off 
their allegiance to their mother country. Every 
consideration commercial, military, civic, social, 



iv IMPERIAL GROWTH 77 

political urged them to go. The moment was 
opportune ; once missed, it might never come back. 
To this plea of Mammon, uttered by the lips of 
the Doge, Angelo Falier replied. As to risk from 
natural calamity, he said, Rome had often suf- 
fered from floods, but not on that account had the 
Romans ignobly proposed to abandon their city. 
Constantinople was not free from earthquakes. 
The difficulties which the Doge complained of 
had been blessings to the Venetians ; the Lagoons, 
which created hardships, gave protection in return ; 
for eight hundred years no foe had entered their 
city. Constantinople, even though they might 
occupy it without resistance, could be held only 
with a large garrison ; the country round it must 
be conquered aud defended ; and it would be con- 
tinually beset by barbaric enemies compared with 
whom their own rivals in Italy were but petty 
annoyers. One defeat at Constantinople would 
mean the extinction of their nation ; for they would 
have no ally to call upon, no refuge to flee to. Their 
new. Empire in the Levant was undeniably rich ; 
but so were Dalmatia and Istria, and so was the 
commerce which they owed to their position at the 
head of the Adriatic. Should they give up the old, 
with its certain benefits, for the sake of the new, 
with its hazards, its untried difficulties, its possible 
ruin ? Although they might lose their possessions 
in the Ionian and in the JEgean, and lose even 
Dalmatia, so long as they held Venice they would 
be impregnable, their nation would be safe. If the 



78 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

commercial advantages to be gained were tenfold 
greater, would any Venetian allow them to out- 
weigh his devotion to Venice, his mother, the home 
of his race for eight centuries, the bestower of his 
blessings, the source of his glory ? 

Falier concluded his appeal on his knees, with 
tears streaming down his cheeks. A hush fell over 
the assembly, and for a while, until the tellers had 
taken the vote, the suspense could scarcely be en- 
dured. At last they announced the result of the 
ballot, three hundred and twenty for removing 
to Constantinople, three hundred and twenty-one 
against. That single vote, which determined who 
can say how widely? the subsequent history not 
only of Venice, but of Italy and the East, was known 
ever afterward as the " Vote of Providence." 

Whether our report be true or not in its details, 
the crisis itself came about the year 1222, when the 
Venetians had had sufficient proof of the utter in- 
competence of the Latin Emperors, and had suffered 
much from the depredations of Genoese corsairs, 
who lay in wait for the Venetian merchantmen 
in the lower Adriatic. A vigilant patrol, and the 
swift punishment of the corsairs as fast as they 
were captured, soon restored safety to commerce. 
At Constantinople the Venetians strengthened 
themselves in their special quarter, and organized 
their trade so as to be as independent as possible of 
the vicissitudes of the Imperial government. Ven- 
ice held the allegiance of her emigrants in spite of 
their restlessness, and succeeded even better than 



iv IMPERIAL GROWTH 79 

England has done in making her children in far 
countries feel that their very existence was bound 
up in hers. 

Throughout the thirteenth century the Republic 
had little cause to regret her Imperial expansion. 
Wealth poured in, but did not yet weaken the 
robust, native character. Power grew apace; in- 
deed, Venice in 1250 was the most powerful state 
in Europe. Only in Italy did she encounter serious 
rivals. Now that Pisa had declined, Genoa stood 
out as her chief competitor for maritime supremacy ; 
and in Sicily there had arisen a great king who 
dreamed of conquering Italy, of which he was the 
titular sovereign. This king, Barbarossa's grand- 
son, Frederick II, " the wonder of the world," 
waged for thirty years a conflict, intermittent but 
fierce, against his enemies in the Peninsula, and 
died in disappointment and defeat. He had against 
him for chief adversary the Papacy, which hap- 
pened in those years to be guided by some of the 
most memorable of all the popes. The little 
Italian states and cities took sides, this Guelf, that 
Ghibelline, from varying motives. Venice, unable 
to hold aloof, joined the new Lombard League in 
behalf of the Pope ; for, as usual, she chose to sup- 
port the party which, if successful, would in the 
long run do her least harm. Her statesmen knew 
that a Guelf confederation of all Italy could not 
possibly last; but that, if a masterful sovereign 
like Frederick should conquer the Peninsula and 
establish a united kingdom, Venetian independence 



80 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

would be imperiled. They did not wish to see 
even in Sicily a strong state; for Sicily, besides 
being very fertile, might easily from her position 
become the commercial centre of the age. 

In the weary struggle that ensued, a struggle not 
of continuous campaigning but of alternate outrages 
and retaliation, Frederick's lieutenant was Ezzelino 
da Romano, tyrant of Padua, whose atrocities sur- 
pass belief. Had a man of equal generalship but 
of humane temper been in his place, the victories 
which the Ghibellines won might have led to per- 
manent dominion ; but at last Northern Italy rose 
in desperation against Ezzelino : he lost a battle, 
was wounded and captured, and in rage tore the 
bandages from his wounds and bled to death (Sep- 
tember 27, 1259). Frederick had already been 
dead nine years, taking into the grave with him a 
capacity for governing such as not half a dozen 
monarchs since his time equaled ; yet he bequeathed 
only failure and discord to his heirs. That a man 
of his immense endowments should have been 
thrown upon an epoch when he could not properly 
exercise them, is one of the most startling exaniples 
of the sardonic wastefulness of fate. 

With Frederick's death vanished the possibility 
of uniting Italy, which was henceforth to be over- 
run by foreign conquerors or throttled by native 
despots, who seldom reigned through two generations 
and never brought more than a small section of the 
country under a single sceptre. Venice had in- 
creased her military prestige in her wars against 



iv IMPERIAL GROWTH 81 

Frederick and Ezzelino ; she had also kindled a 
craving for actual lordship on the mainland, and 
had become accustomed during more than twenty 
years to the thought that, if there were trouble in 
Padua or Ferrara, in Treviso or Verona, Venetian 
troops should be despatched to interfere. For the 
present, however, she made no attempt to conquer 
or hold the neighboring territory. Other business 
engrossed her. The Latin Empire was crumbling ; 
rivalry with Genoa had reached a warlike stage. 

For two hundred years, conditions had been pre- 
paring a life-and-death struggle between Genoa and 
Venice. During these years Genoa slowly overtook 
and passed her nearest rivals, the Pisans; while 
Venice, having worsted pirates, Normans and Sara- 
cens, in the Adriatic, had risen to the first place in 
the Levant. Still, the Genoese carried on a large 
trade ; they maintained a powerful navy, and in 
their roughness and pugnacity they showed a 
Spartan strain. The Venetians were unquestionably 
far ahead in civilization, but not the less were they 
too fighters. Not since Rome and Carthage con- 
tested for the supremacy of the Mediterranean had 
there been so fierce and long and varying a mari- 
time competition. 

The quarrel broke out over the ownership of the 
church and quarter of St. Saba at Acre, where both 
the Venetians and Genoese had long held commer- 
cial settlements. A row between their sailors led 
to bloodshed, whereupon Luca Grimaldi, the newly 
arrived Genoese Consul, ordered his two large gal- 



82 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

leys to destroy the Venetian shipping. The Venetian 
quarter was sacked and partly burned, and its in- 
habitants lived in daily fear of being exterminated 
(1256). As soon as the Doge heard the news, he 
sent an embassy to Genoa to demand redress. The 
Genoese curtly refused. Then the Venetians fitted 
out fourteen galleys in all haste, set Lorenzo Tie- 
polo over them as admiral, and bade him punish 
without delay. In due season he appeared before 
Acre, broke the great chain by which the Genoese 
hoped to bar his entrance, set fire to the ships in 
the harbor, and, landing his men, quickly captured 
the town. The Genoese then had their taste of sack 
and pillage, and soon sued for a truce, which Tie- 
polo granted. 

The truce proved to be brief, but while it lasted 
the Genoese government hurried reinforcements to 
Tyre; and when their admiral, Pietro Mallono, 
thought he was strong enough, he sailed up and 
down before Acre, daring the Venetians to attack 
him. Tiepolo could not be teased into a premature 
sortie. Having made ready, he accepted the chal- 
lenge, and with seventeen galleys defeated Mallono's 
twenty-seven near Tyre. That disaster crippled^ 
Genoa's sea power in the East. 

The Genoese at home heard the evil tidings with 
rage. " Now let such vengeance be taken," they 
all cried, " that it shall never be forgotten." The 
women said to their husbands : " We do not want 
any more of our dowries, either for life or for 
death. Spend them on vengeance." And the 



iv IMPERIAL GROWTH 83 

maidens said to their fathers and brothers and 
other kinsmen : " We do not desire husbands. All 
that you ought to give us for them spend in taking 
vengeance on the Venetians, and you will pay this 
debt to us by bringing us their heads." The 
Genoese set to work and equipped four great 
ships and forty gaileys. One of the galleys was 
equipped by the women and another by the maid- 
ens with their dowers. Such was the magnificent 
mettle of the Genoese. 1 

Under Kosso della Turca, their new armament 
sailed for Syria where, on August 24, 1258, it en- 
countered the Venetian fleet commanded by Tiepolo. 
The Genoese had the advantage in the number and 
size of their ships. They were certainly not less 
valorous than the Venetians; but Tiepolo proved the 
superior tactician, and after a desperately bloody 
battle he gained a complete victory. He took 
twenty-five Genoese galleys as prizes into the port 
of Acre, razed the Genoese quarter there, and re- 
turned in triumph to Venice. Among his trophies 
were the two quaint columns still standing near the 
Porta della Carta, and the Pietra del Bando, or 
block of porphyry at the southwest corner of St. 
Mark's. 

The quarrel between the republics not only 
threatened to exhaust them, but it weakened the 
position, already much impaired, of the Christians 
in the Holy Land. Pope Alexander IV accordingly 
acted as mediator, and by combining exhortation 
i Da Canale, p. 463. 



84 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

\fith ecclesiastical menaces, he persuaded them to 
agree to a truce, which they observed for a time, 
not deceiving themselves with the delusion that the 
real cause of hatred had been removed. 

Two years later, Michael Paleologus, an ambi- 
tious Greek, determined to recover Constantinople 
and restore the Greek Empire. The plan seemed 
easy, for, under Baldwin II, the Latin government 
had reached the point where it would collapse at the 
least pressure, and Western Europe, except Venice, 
had no interest in upholding it. But knowing that 
much of their commercial prosperity depended on 
having at Constantinople a ruler friendly to them, 
and that if Michael the Greek succeeded, he would 
naturally be resentful, the Venetians furnished a 
subsidy to hire troops, and sent some of their own 
galleys into the Black Sea to attack the Greek city 
of Daphnusia. Nothing could save Baldwin. A 
small force of Greeks under Michael's general, 
Strategopoulos, entered Constantinople without re- 
sistance, and was busy putting the hostile quarter 
to fire and sword when the Venetian squadron sailed 
back through the Bosphorus, in time only to rescue 
those of their fugitive fellow-countrymen who 
thronged the shore (1261). Michael made himself 
emperor, and as the Genoese had abetted his 
schemes, he granted them special commercial privi- 
leges, and assigned to them the palace which had 
been the residence of the Venetian bailo. For the 
moment, it looked as if Venice had lost her primacy 
in the Levant. 



iv IMPERIAL GROWTH 85 

Michael soon found his Genoese allies inconven- 
ient neighbors, or possibly he saw that it would 
be politic not to break utterly with the Venetian 
and Pisan colonists, for he removed the Genoese 
from Starnboul to Galata, on the opposite shore of 
the Golden Horn, where there was less danger of 
their coming to blows with the other Italians. Still, 
the Venetians knew that their position was at best 
insecure. They smarted at the loss of prestige, and 
resolved to crush Genoa. They sent embassies to 
the Pope, to France, and Spain, to urge a general 
campaign for the recovery of Constantinople from 
the Greeks. But the pleasant words they received 
brought neither ship nor troop, and then they real- 
ized that Western Europe had decided to let them 
fight unaided their battles in the East. They had 
destroyed the old Empire for their selfish ends, and 
they must take the consequences. This most sen- 
sible decision showed that the Crusading spirit was 
waning, and that the Western nations were begin- 
ning to understand that their real concerns lay in 
their .own growth, and in establishing relations with 
their neighbors, instead of in pursuing will-o'-the- 
wisps in lands five hundred leagues away. 

Thrown on their own resources, the Venetians 
lost no time in fitting out another fleet, and during 
the next two years (1262^4) they frequently en- 
countered the Genoese. More than one Venetian 
convoy was captured by the enemy, who in turn 
lost several small engagements. At length a great 
battle was fought off the coast of Sicily, near 



86 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

Trapani, by twenty-eight Genoese galleys com- 
manded by Lanfranco Borborino, and by twenty- 
six Venetian ships under Marco Gradenigo and 
Giacomo Dandolo. The Genoese were hopelessly 
routed, whether because their admiral was "a 
chicken-hearted fellow," as a disgusted contempo- 
rary dubbed him, or because the Venetians displayed 
their usual superiority in handling a large fleet in 
action. The superstitious did not forget that just 
fifty years before the Venetian Trevisano destroyed 
an earlier Genoese fleet in these very waters. 

The present victory reestablished the supremacy 
of Venice on the sea. Genoa, the untamable, was 
stunned, exhausted. Her immense efforts during 
the space of eight years have never been sufficiently 
admired, although they rank among the prodigies 
of naval warfare ; for she fought four pitched bat- 
tles at Tyre, off Acre, at Sette Pozzi, and at 
Trapani in which she sent one hundred and 
four ships into action ; and though defeated, she 
quickly equipped a fresh fleet after each battle save 
the last. In comparison with this, our modern 
naval armaments look small. And Genoa, it must 
be remembered, was inferior in population and in 
wealth to Venice, and was passing through a period 
of internal discord from which her rival was free. 
In spite of these disadvantages, she maintained a 
wonderful contest. 

The Venetian triumph brought Emperor Michael 
to terms. The sly Greek would naturally have 
preferred that the Italian powers from which he 



iv IMPERIAL GROWTH 87 

had most to fear should fight until both were 
ruined; but since Venice had conquered, he was 
ready to fawn on her and to snub Genoa. The 
overtures he offered were construed as so plain an 
indication of his weakness that they revived among 
a party in the Venetian Senate the old scheme of 
seizing Constantinople, in order to make it surely 
Venetian, if not the capital of the Republic. A 
stronger and wiser party urged in opposition that 
as they could expect no further support from Latin 
Europe, the enterprise had increased in risk ; that 
the burden of maintaining their government at Con- 
stantinople would be heavy ; and that a single check 
or defeat would bring the Genoese upon them with 
reueAved vigor. These prudent counselors pre- 
vailed, and after haggling over the details of the 
treaty, a five years' truce was concluded, in Avhich 
Michael conceded to the Venetians special rights in 
commerce, law courts, and residence, in return for 
which they promised not to molest him (1268). 

Venice had now every reason to exult over her 
position. She had met and apparently overcome 
all the difficulties which the thirteenth century had 
marshaled against her. On the mainland she had 
withstood Frederick and Ezzelino; they perished, 
she survived, her political reputation greatly aug- 
mented, her commercial system widely extended. 
She had seen the Latin Empire collapse, her vast 
Oriental trade put in jeopardy, a hostile Greek 
Emperor conspiring with her deadly rivals, the 
Genoese ; yet within three years that Emperor was 



88 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

suing for her friendship, and the Genoese, after 
their fourth terrific defeat, seemed stricken beyond 
hope of recovery for at least a generation. In 
Dalmatia, Venice again was mistress, having sup- 
pressed the rebellion instigated by the King of 
Hungary, and forced him by treaty to renounce 
further hostility. In Candia, although turbulence 
recurred from decade to decade, her rule was too 
strong to be shaken off by any revolt. We have 
only to compare the condition of the Western 
nations at this time to perceive how far Venice 
surpassed any of them in wealth, in compact power, 
and in civilization. 

In England, the greatest of the Plantagenets did 
not mount the throne till 1272; he conquered 
Wales, and temporarily subdued the Scotch ; but 
half of his kingdom and interests still lay across 
the English Channel an evident cause of weakness ; 
and neither his English nor his Norman realm had 
the compactness which gives strength. In France, 
where the long reign of Louis IX was closing, the 
interminable struggle between the crown and the 
great feudatories had begun ; but no one could yet 
predict whether the crown would eventually win, 
or, as happened in Germany, the too powerful 
vassals, resisting consolidation, would split up into 
many particularist small states. The House of 
Hapsburg had secured control of the Holy Roman 
Empire, and was destined to hold it with occasional 
interruption until 1806; but the Hapsburgs' real 
empire was to be over Austria and the countries 



iv IMPERIAL GROWTH 89 

south and east, and not over Germany. In Spain, 
the grasp of the Moors was weakening ; but along- 
side of the two leading Christian kingdoms of 
Aragon and Castile there were several smaller 
independent states, all mutually jealous, and united 
only in their hatred of the Moors. Italy itself had 
no unifying influence ; the day of the tyrants had 
come ; of life too intensely individualized ; of the 
sudden expansion of one state after another, as 
some vigorous personality compelled it, with the 
inevitable collapse when this personality was with- 
drawn. The Papacy and Venice were the only 
Italian organisms through which a consecutive pur- 
pose ran from age to age. 

We cannot too often repeat that commerce, next 
to self-preservation, was the chief concern of Venice. 
" Merchandize flows through this noble city," says 
Da Canale in 1272, "like the water of the foun- 
tains." Everything that enterprise, invention, or 
foresight could supply went to build up the world- 
wide traffic of the Republic. From the earliest 
days she made commercial treaties and secured 
concessions. Little by little she extended her trade 
from the Upper Adriatic and its tributary rivers 
to all parts of the Mediterranean. Orseolo the 
Great propitiated the Arab princes of Aleppo and 
Damascus, of Cairo, Palermo, and Kairwan ; and he 
secured from the Greek Emperor special rates for 
Venetian ships passing the Dardanelles. A century 
later, Emperor Alexis decreed that Venetian mer- 
chants should buy and sell untaxed throughout his 



C^ X ^ A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

Thus before the Crusades, Venice enjoyed 
unique privileges in the Levant, and her operations 
were eagerly watched by Western Christendom. 
We read that in 1017, when four of her ships laden 
with spice were shipwrecked, the news as of a 
calamity spread throughout Germany. Her mer- 
chants took out woolen cloths, lumber, grain, arms, 
salt meats, and slaves; they brought back the 
varied products of Muscovy, Asia, and Africa. At 
Tana, on the Sea of Azov, they bought pitch and 
hemp ; at Alexandria, Beyrout, and Aleppo, pepper, 
spices, drugs, rich fabrics, ivory, and precious 
stones. 

The common route between India and the West- 
ern world was by water from Calicut to Aden, 
where Egyptian merchants bought the Asian car- 
goes which they shipped up the Red Sea to Kosseir 
or Aidab. There they were unloaded and carried 
on camels to the Nile ; then down the Nile to Cairo 
and Alexandria. Later, Jeddah superseded Aden, 
and the water carriage was prolonged to Suez, at the 
head of the Red Sea, which a short portage con- 
nected with the capital. The Venetian merchant 
might buy in the spring at Cairo goods which 
had been packed at Canton or Pekin the previous 
autumn, and had come by sea to Malacca, where 
the Indian traders took them and passed them on 
to Cambaye, Malabar, and Calicut. In the fifteenth 
century another route was opened from Calicut to 
Ormuz, near the mouth of the Persian Gulf ; thence 
through the Gulf and up the Tigris to Bagdad; 



iv . IMPERIAL GROWTH 91 

thence by caravan to Damascus. There were also 
overland routes connecting Central Asia with the 
Syrian marts. 

Having loaded his wares, the Venetian merchant 
sailed home to Venice, which consumed a part of 
them ; the rest went across the Alps into Germany 
and Austria, or they were transshipped into other 
galleys which distributed them along the western 
Mediterranean or took them to England and Flan- 
ders. So an apothecary at Bruges might receive 
a package of rhubarb put up by a Chinaman in the 
Far East, and complete the great circuit of trade. 

The state did not limit private enterprise, but 
the conditions were such that it had to take care 
that nothing should interrupt the circulation of traf- 
fic, which was its life-blood. It sent convoys to 
protect the merchantmen from pirates. It built 
all the ships at its Arsenal, and prescribed strict 
dimensions for each sort. By thus standardizing 
the measurements it secured a useful uniformity. 
Merchant galleys could be quickly converted into 
war galleys ; a merchant fleet and its convoys 
sailed at the same speed ; their officers and crews 
could be interchanged; and in case of damage, 
broken rigging or equipment could be replaced at 
the nearest port where there was a Venetian depot ; 
for these depots kept in stock sections and parts of 
ships of each model. No other nation has devised 
so perfect a combination of its mercantile marine 
and its navy. The Venetian government auctioned 
the galleys, fully equipped and provisioned, to the 



92 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

highest bidder, who pledged himself to return them 
in good condition, not to engage in any unlawful 
business, or to sell them to a foreigner. By this 
arrangement the government promoted commerce 
without running the risk of losing by an unprof- 
itable venture. It further fostered its merchants 
by maintaining consuls in the Levant, and these 
commercial agents guarded jealously their country- 
men's interests and reported every new opening for 
trade. By the middle of the fifteenth century, 
when Venetian commerce reached its prime, there 
were afloat thirty-three hundred ships, large and 
small, with thirty thousand men employed upon 
them, and sixteen thousand men at work in the 
Arsenal. 

Individual vessels came and went all the time ; 
but gradually the great merchant fleets followed a 
regular schedule, and had each its special season. 
There were six of these fleets, numbering from 
three to six galleys each. One went to Romania ; 
another to the Crimea ; a third to Armenia ; a 
fourth to Cyprus and Egypt; a fifth to the Bar- 
bary States; and the last to Spain, Portugal, 
France, England, and Flanders. The Flanders 
galleys, after unloading at Bruges, stopped at one 
of the English ports, London, Plymouth, South- 
ampton, Dartmouth, Rye, or Lynn, where they 
sold alum, glass, silk, drapery, sugar, wines, con- 
fectionery, spices, and wood, and bought wool, iron, 
hides, and broadcloth. With Egypt there was a 
lively trade requiring from eight to twelve galleys 



iv IMPERIAL GROWTH 93 

a year. A cargo of spice was valued at 35,000 
ducats, and we hear of a monster galleass which 
brought 200,000 ducats' worth on a single voyage. 
The pepper trade of Alexandria equaled in rela- 
tive importance that of England in tea and cotton 
to-day. Reckoning at about $2.25, or nine shillings 
and four pence, the bullion value of the gold ducat, 
and its purchasing power at from twelve to fifteen 
times the same amount now, we get a hint of the 
wealth which Venice owed to her foreign trade. 

Commerce by land supplemented commerce by 
water; and from the earliest days the energetic 
Venetians took care to secure a free passage for 
distributing their goods throughout Northern Italy 
and across the Alps. And native industries, pushed 
with characteristic vigor, made of Venice a centre 
of production. To salt and salt fish, her first 
staples, she added bell casting, glass-working, silk- 
weaving, the manufacture of iron and of porcelain, 
a woolen trade which at its height is said to have 
employed thirty thousand hands, fine leather work, 
lace, jewelry, and shipbuilding. Forty thousand 
packhorses came down from the north to Istria 
every year, to take back Venetian salt to the 
Austrian Empire. 

Her industries were as perfectly organized as her 
commerce. The guild system, adopted as early as 
the eleventh century, flourished for five hundred 
years. Each guild, in imitation of the Republic, 
had its doge and great council ; it watched over 
the training of apprentices ; it insisted on first-rate 



94 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

work ; it took care of the sick and aged, and pro- 
tected widows and orphans. The Venetian guilds, 
unlike those of Florence and of the other Italian 
cities, never became political hotbeds. Since they 
grew up side by side, on friendly terms with the 
oligarchy, we may infer that they felt no class 
grievance against the patricians, but recognized, 
rather, how much the oligarchic form of govern- 
ment benefited their business. For they enjoyed 
stability, and light, even taxation ; they feared no 
foreign invader; they suffered from no home 
extortion. Their fellows elsewhere, on the con- 
trary, groaned either from political convulsions or 
from the whims and rapacity of insatiate despots. 
And, indeed, the oligarchy proved itself in this, as 
in other respects, the most discreet of privileged 
classes. It might shut out the guilds from politi- 
cal activity, but it never for a moment disguised 
the fact that its own vital interests and those of 
the guildsmen, the small merchants, and the sea- 
men were solidaire. The state granted monopolies, 
passed laws to promote the prosperity of the guilds, 
and punished the disclosure of the secret methods 
of manufacture. Moreover, the patricians them- 
selves were merchants, proud to acknowledge the 
source of their wealth and power, and bound by 
the ties of business to the middle and lower classes. 
Thus did her commerce, her colonies, and her 
home industries contribute to the upbuilding of the 
Venetian state. She left nothing to chance. She 
planned carefully and carried out stanchly. There 



iv IMPERIAL GROWTH 95 

was perfect coordination among all parts of her 
system. She encouraged individual enterprise, but 
in concerns too great for a private citizen to grap- 
ple with, she lent her guiding hand. As she grew 
opulent herself, she extended civilization through- 
out the West. In an epoch when religious, dynas- 
tic, and racial antipathies separated town from town 
and people from people, and made murder the chief 
occupation in life, she showed how commerce could 
promote international friendship and welfare, and 
plant the seeds of toleration. 



CHAPTER V 

FIXING THE CONSTITUTION, 1264-1310 

THE political constitution of a state is determined 
not only by the ideals its people hold of justice and 
civic administration, but also by conflict with for- 
eign rivals. The unique position of Venice made 
her, from the beginning, as we have seen, an excep- 
tion to the general rule by which the races of 
Western Europe slowly organized after the fall of 
Rome. The Teutonic invasion brought feudalism ; 
Venice persisted in being unfeudal. The new 
states became monarchical ; Venice suffered no 
monarch. Latin Christendom acknowledged the 
supremacy of the Roman Pontiff; Venice, while 
Roman Catholic in religion, remained ecclesiasti- 
cally independent. Western Christendom accepted 
the Holy Roman Emperor as its overlord; Venice 
adroitly avoided actual vassalage either to him or 
to the Eastern Emperor. The rest of the world 
was chiefly engaged in war on land ; Venice devoted 
her energy to commerce by sea. And so we might 
go on multiplying contrasts, all of which show that 
Venice, thanks to her isolation, succeeded in going 
her own way during an entire epoch, while her 
96 



CHAP, v FIXING THE CONSTITUTION 97 

neighbors either did not wish or had not the power 
to thwart her. 

The political organism which she had fashioned 
was admirably adapted to her needs in such an 
epoch. Amid a world of flux, it had the primal 
virtue of stability; the rock stands after a thou- 
sand angry tides have foamed round it and ebbed 
away. But there is also the stability of elasticity, 
which bends without breaking and adjusts itself to 
new conditions without surrendering its essential 
nature. With the thirteenth century a change was 
spreading over European civilization ; it might be 
that the elastic and not the rigid political organism 
would be master now. Just at the dawn of this 
new era, Venice adopted the political system which, 
as it proved, she was to keep almost unaltered dur- 
ing the last five centuries of her existence. 

It will be remembered that in the early days she 
resisted the tendency toward an hereditary mon- 
archy. Having succeeded in making her doges 
elective, she took steps to prevent them from be- 
ing despotic. In 1032 two ducal councilors were 
appointed to guard against every attempt of a 
doge to exercise undue power. The fiction of popu- 
lar government was still assumed; the doge was 
supposed to owe his authority, if not actually his 
election, to popular approval, and vital public ques- 
tions were always submitted to the arrengo. But 
the members of the great families really controlled 
the government long before they openly showed 
their power. As late as 1071 the people unques- 



98 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

tionably elected their doge, Domenico Selvo, and 
he, in sign of humility, took off his stockings and 
went barefoot from Olivolo to St. Mark's. 

During the next century the political situation 
became clearly defined. The aristocracy evidently 
tightened its grip; the people lacked a channel 
through which they could continuously influence the 
government; the doge, himself an aristocrat, was 
more jealously watched by his own class than by the 
people, yet he did not, like many kings in other 
states, form with the people a coalition to break the 
power of the aristocracy. In 1171, after the disas- 
trous expedition of Vitale Michiel, the ducal pre- 
rogatives were further curtailed, and a permanent 
assembly, the forerunner of the Great Council, was 
created. The doge's councilors were now six instead 
of two, with strict charge to prevent him from carry- 
ing on private negotiations with foreign states, or 
to strengthen his family at home. The number of 
the pregadi, or eminent citizens invited by the doge 
to advise him, was likewise increased. Above all, 
the organization of the Great Council, with four hun- 
dred and eighty members, gave the Republic a broad- 
based organ of legislation, and guarded it alike from 
ducal ambition and popular hysterics. The electors 
of the first council were themselves chosen by popu- 
lar vote to represent each section of the city, but 
as they chose their own successors, this assembly 
became the stronghold of the aristocracy. 

The year 1171, therefore, marks the definite emer- 
gence of the oligarchy as the governing class. That 



V FIXING THE CONSTITUTION 99 

such a revolution could come about without serious 
tumult shows that the oligarchs possessed the pe- 
culiar Venetian virtue of patience, which kept them 
from clutching prematurely at the prize which was 
sure to fall into their grasp, if they would but wait. 
The wise among them foresaw the danger of ex- 
clusiveness. "Leave open a career of honor and 
office to the more powerful citizens," said Sebastian 
Ziani, the sagacious doge who entertained Pope 
Alexander III and Frederick Barbarossa as the 
guests of Venice. " Avoid war, and take care that 
the people never suffer famine," was another of his 
maxims. A career for the upper classes, comfort 
and peace for the lower, were the surest guarantees 
of a lasting government. 

Ziani had been chosen by eleven electors, des- 
ignated by the Great Council. The number was 
raised to forty, and this again in 1249 to forty-one, 
after there had been a tie vote in 1229. The oli- 
garchy now plainly controlled the electoral machine, 
although the custom of announcing the name of the 
newly elected doge to the populace with the addi- 
tional " An it please you " was not yet abandoned. 
In spite of so many safeguards, the Great Council 
still feared lest some prepotent duke might break 
through them all. Genius and ambition laugh at 
precedents. Did not Enrico Dandolo so move the 
Venetians in that famous meeting in St. Mark's 
that they bade him take the Cross himself, and 
consented, contrary to the law, that during his ab- 
sence his son Renier should serve as vice-doge ? 



100 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

If such an exception occurred once, it might occur 
again, when not a great patriot but a self-seeker 
were in office. At Dandolo's election (1192) the 
Great Council exacted the signing of a ducal pro- 
mission (promissione ducale) or coronation oath, set- 
ting forth a multitude of stipulations which the 
Doge agreed to observe. These pledges were from 
time to time loaded with fresh prescriptions, until 
they reached the point where every possible con- 
tingency seemed to be provided for, and the luck- 
less Doge might dread impeachment if he failed to 
sneeze according to rule. To print the promission 
of Jacopo Tiepolo (1229) requires nine octavo 
pages, and the list lengthened as experience sug- 
gested new items. A special committee of five 
"Correctors" was appointed to draw up this in- 
strument, and, as a final precaution, when a doge 
died another committee of three " Inquisitors on 
the Defunct Doge " investigated his official conduct 
and his estate, with powers, in case they discovered 
illegal acts or improper gains, to attaint his heirs. 
Neither in life nor in death would the Great Council 
relax their vigilance over their chief servant. 

This extraordinary system really worked; and 
although, if minutely carried out, it would have 
reduced the Doge to a puppet, in practice it left 
him, within certain limits, considerable freedom. 
For we must always distinguish between the ab- 
stract ruler, as defined by a constitution, and the 
actual ruler, whose influence depends largely on 
his social position or his personality. The Presi- 



v FIXING THE CONSTITUTION 101 

dent of the United States has by law certain pre- 
rogatives, hedged round by many checks ; the 
personality of the President determines whether 
he rank as a passive machine or as an active direct- 
ing force; under legal forms he may, in an emer- 
gency, wield power as absolute as the Czar's. And 
so, while it is true that the doges were theoretically 
mere figureheads adorned with matchless pomp, 
there was, in fact, still scope for the vigorous among 
them to stamp their individuality on public affairs. 

At the election of Lorenzo Tiepolo in 1268 was 
employed for the first time the intricate system by 
which the patricians hoped to winnow out their 
desired candidate. The Great Council chose by lot 
thirty members, who chose nine ; these nine chose 
forty, who chose twelve ; these twelve chose twenty- 
five, who chose nine; these nine chose forty -five, 
who chose eleven ; these eleven chose forty -one, 
who finally elected the Doge, who must have at 
least a minimum of twenty-five votes. The original 
intention may have been to throw the election, by a 
succession of large and small groups, into the hands 
of large numbers of the Great Councilors; but in 
fact, it will be observed, all the various groups 
may have been drawn from forty-five, and the 
same person may have voted with each group. Here 
again a seemingly rigid mechanism allowed some 
play to human plasticity. But the adoption of this 
method deprived the people of the last shred of in- 
fluence in choosing the Doge. 

Having attained their object of controlling the 



102 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

election and the conduct of the head of the state, 
the patricians went on to complete their oligarchy 
by reforming the Great Council, which was at once 
the source of political authority and of practical ad- 
ministration. After its creation in 1171, the Great 
Council had elected its own members, and while all 
classes of citizens were equally eligible to it, the 
patricians, predominant from the first, naturally 
tended to exclude representatives of the other 
classes. In this they succeeded, for in 1293 the 
Contarini family had eighteen, the Morosini eleven, 
and the Foscari ten members in the council. 1 

The total membership, originally four hundred 
and eighty, had dropped to two hundred and ten in 
1296, and the provision that it should be replen- 
ished every year by an election at Michaelmas 
had been so far disregarded that partial elections 
were held at irregular dates. Whether these 
lapses came about unintentionally, or were moves 

1 To illustrate the persistence of the old families, we find 
that in 1486 there were twenty-four of them that dated from 
early times, some indeed from the preducal days. Romanin 
(IV, 420) gives the list as follows : 

Badoer, Basegio, Barozzo, Bragadin, Bembo, Contariui, 
Corner, Dandolo, Dolfiu, Falier, Gradenigo, Memmo, Michiel, 
Morosini, Polani, Queriui, Salomon, Sanudo, Soranzo, Tiepolo, 
Zane, Zen, Zorzi, and Zustinian. Of these all but five (Barozzi, 
Basegio, Querini, Salomon, and Zane) had had at least one 
doge. In 1450 sixteen new houses conspired to keep any of the 
old houses from being doge : Barbarigo, Dona, Foscari, Grimani, 
Gritti, Lando, Loredan, Malipiero, Marcello, Mocenigo, Moro, 
Priuli, Trevisan, Tron, Vendramin, and Venier. This combina- 
tion worked successfully till 1620, when Marcantonio Memmo 
was unexpectedly elected. 



v FIXING THE CONSTITUTION 103 

in the deep-planned but unavowed game of the pa- 
tricians, can hardly be decided now. No one can 
doubt that Venice, since about the year 1000, had 
been tending toward a strong oligarchy. The 
great families themselves knew whither the cur- 
rent was running; so, presumably, did all the 
citizens ; but the former seemed not to coerce, and 
the latter seemed scarcely to resist ; so that, as 
in the case of reducing the Doge's power, the final 
public recognition of the oligarchy caused little 
trouble. 

In 1286 the patrician party brought forward a 
resolution that thenceforward no one should be 
eligible to the Great Council whose father or pa- 
ternal ancestor had not sat in that body. The mo- 
tion was lost by a majority of thirty-four out of 
only one hundred and thirty votes, the Doge him- 
self, Giovanni Dandolo, having thrown his influence 
against it. Ten years later, however, the measure 
was pushed anew. In the interval Pietro Grade- 
nigo, an aggressive aristocrat, had succeeded Dan- 
dolo. The democrats lacked forcible leaders, and 
the distractions of a naval war with Genoa produced 
a most unfavorable condition for the calm discus- 
sion of internal policy. The Great Council had 
only two hundred and ten members, and appar- 
ently there was intentional delay in making up 
the regular number. Gradenigo's enemies naturally 
suspected that he chose this moment and this par- 
ticular session to carry through his project. In any 
case, on February 28, 1297, a law was passed defin- 



104 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP 

ing the qualifications for membership in the Great 
Council. The reform provided that 

1. The Council of Forty should immediately vote 
on the names of all persons who had been members 
of the Great Council during the past four years, 
and such candidates as received not less than 
twelve votes should be members of the new council. 

2. On return from absence abroad a member must 
be voted on afresh. 

3. Three electors should be appointed to nomi- 
nate, with the approval of the Doge and his privy 
councilors, persons who had not been members of 
the Great Council. These electors should hold 
office a year, and their successors should be chosen 
annually by ballot. 

4. This system could be revoked only by a vote 
of five out of six ducal councilors, of twenty-five 
out of the Council of Forty, and of two thirds of the 
Great Council. 

Such, in substance, was the Serrata del Maggior 
Consiglio, the " Closing of the Great Council," 
which fixed irrevocably, as the future proved, the 
government of Venice. Through it the oligarchy 
became the acknowledged master of the Republic. 
The hereditary principle, so stubbornly contested 
by the doges, henceforth determined membership 
in the Great Council, and as the members of the 
smaller executive and judicial councils were almost 
invariably chosen from the larger body, the entire 
power of the Venetian state lay in the hands of a 
small privileged class. Yet small though this class 



v FIXING THE CONSTITUTION 105 

was in number, it was relatively larger, in propor- 
tion to the whole population, than the nobility 
which ruled France under the Old Regime, or even 
than the aristocracy which dominated England 
down to 1832. And although the main entrance 
to the patriciate was locked forever, a side door 
was left open through which a man of exceptional 
ability, otherwise ineligible, might be let in. This 
seldom occurred, but the fact that extraordinary 
merit might lift its possessor into the charmed 
circle, provided a safety valve against rankling 
injustice. We should note also the peculiarly 
Venetian quality of the provision which required 
that even those whose descent entitled them to 
stand as candidates must be elected : in other 
words, to be a patrician did not suffice, for the 
Great Council undertook to choose in each genera- 
tion the most desirable of the patrician class. In 
this way it hoped to escape the evil, which has at- 
tended every other hereditary assembly of nobles, 
of seeing its benches crowded with degenerate sons 
of old houses, who have no training, and often not 
enoiigh intelligence to be trained, in public affairs. 
Here again the Venetians, after making a rigid 
law, wisely allowed, as was their wont, for healthy 
variation. 

Nevertheless, the Closing of the Great Council 
swept away the pretense that Venice was a de- 
mocracy. It divided the citizens into three classes : 
those who had never been, and whose ancestors had 
never been, in the Great Council in numbers by 



106 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

far the largest class, commonly called the "new 
men " ; those who were now members ; and lastly, 
those who could point to either a father or an 
ancestor in the Great Council. The immediate 
effect of the reform was to swell the number of 
members, because everybody entitled to nomination 
asked to be balloted on. In 1297 only 210 mem- 
bers had passed the new law ; in 1311 the roll rose 
to 1017; in 1340 to 1212; in 1437 to 1300; in 1490 
to 1570 ; and in 1510 to 1671. 

To keep membership pure, the Golden Book was 
established in 1315 to record the marriages of all 
patricians eligible to the Great Council, and the 
births of their children. Bastards and sons born 
out of wedlock, but subsequently legitimized, were 
excluded from the succession. But on the other 
hand, the lists of the eligible comprised the names 
of all who could trace their descent to a Grand 
Councilor at any time since 1172, and of the Pre- 
gadi, the Forty, the baili, counts, castellans, pretors, 
councilors, rectors, consuls, visdomini, and many 
other officials who had served the Republic at 
home or in the colonies. 

While it has been customary to denounce the 
Serrata as a sudden and ruthless suppression of 
popular government, the facts hardly warrant such 
denunciation. The movement which culminated in 
1297 had been in. progress for two centuries; the 
supremacy of the upper class had long existed as a 
fact, and ten years had elapsed since the reform was 
previously debated in the Great Council before it 



v FIXING THE CONSTITUTION 107 

received this constitutional sanction. The rights 
from which the people were now definitely shut 
out, they had not enjoyed in practice for many gener- 
ations. In forty years you may never have wished to 
go to Guinea ; but let fate paralyze you so that you 
can never afterward go there if you would, and 
you will feel that you have been deprived of a life- 
long right. Had the Venetian people attempted at 
any time in the thirteenth century to ride the Re- 
public, they would have found the aristocracy already 
in the saddle. The imperial expansion of Venice 
after the Fourth Crusade confirmed the ascendency 
of the great families. The wider commerce enor- 
mously enriched them. The many new offices 
required for governing the colonies gave an oppor- 
tunity to hundreds of ambitious nobles, and, indeed, 
to any enterprising citizen, who might hope to win 
a higher position at home through great achieve- 
ments abroad. In any state, the government in- 
evitably comes into the hands of the dominant 
class; and this is true whatever the government 
may be called: there are to-day several thriving 
despotisms, which wear the thinnest democratic 
disguise. 

Why did the political life of Venice grow natu- 
rally into an oligarchy ? The question is one of 
the most interesting in constitutional history, and 
so far as I know nobody has fully answered it. 
Mr. Hazlitt's answer is worth pondering : " In a 
state like Venice," he says, " where navigation sup- 
plied, in a large measure, the place of agriculture, 



108 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

and where the attention of the multitude was 
regularly directed by their callings as pilots, mari- 
ners, and fishermen, from the management and 
progress of public affairs, it was not difficult for an 
oligarchy, so long as it was true to itself, to retain 
the governing prerogative and the succession to the 
ducal office in its own hands ; and it is accordingly 
found that the very tribunitial families which ruled 
the Republic in the sixth and seventh centuries 
still preserved in the eleventh their political ascen- 
dency." This sounds reasonable, until we reflect 
that neither at Pisa nor at Genoa, where navigation 
formed, as at Venice, the chief business, did an oli- 
garchy establish itself. Genoa especially, which 
came nearest to Venice in maritime power and com- 
mercial interests, was notoriously the most revolu- 
tionary state in Europe, and the revolutions which 
tormented her resulted more than once in a victory 
for the very plebeians. Nor, if we examine the 
political evolution of the northern commercial 
cities of Antwerp, Bruges, and the Hanse towns, 
shall we discover any general drift toward 
oligarchy. Evidently, Mr. Hazlitt has not found 
the key. 

The cause which really determined the politics of 
Venice was not navigation instead of agriculture, 
but geographical isolation. As we have so often 
remarked, the Republic of the Lagoons grew up in 
almost complete independence of the influences 
which conditioned the growth of every other Eu- 
ropean state. The Venetians had known neither 



v FIXING THE CONSTITUTION 109 

Imperial count nor Papal vicar. The great tide of 
world politics had never ebbed and flowed in their 
streets. Truculent territorial lords had never con- 
tested with the populace for mastery. There had 
been great captains, but no military dictators. The 
bourgeoisie, that middle class out of which in other 
countries representative government was to spring, 
exerted less influence at Venice than elsewhere, be- 
cause up to the Closing of the Great Council, and 
long afterward, the patricians were themselves the 
merchants. Foreign invasion, which elsewhere de- 
stroyed small states, was only a remote danger at 
Venice a danger remote but wholesome, because 
it invariably put an end to internal feuds. 

Isolation, not navigation, was, therefore, the cru- 
cial fact, thanks to which the Venetian constitution 
shaped itself with almost unexampled deliberate- 
ness, and expressed the inmost character of the 
people. The aristocracy could never have got con- 
trol and kept it, unless the other classes had come 
through long experience to regard this as on the 
whole fitting. They had learned that government 
by mass meeting, which is always uncertain, becomes 
impossible when population grows. Never having 
practiced representative government, in the modern 
sense of electing a small body of deputies to legis- 
late for all, the rise of the oligarchy did not,"as the 
laments of some historians might suggest, deprive 
the masses of political functions which they were in 
the habit of exercising. No flourishing democracy 
was destroyed. The class which had, as everybody 



110 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

knew, really mastered the Eepublic now simply 
took the name of master. 

The comparatively slight opposition which the rise 
of the oligarchy met with proves that democratic 
ideals, as we understand them, did not penetrate 
the masses. We infer also that, in spite of class 
distinctions and the barriers everywhere set up be- 
tween the rich and the poor, the Venetians were one 
people to a degree which has rarely been matched. 
In the earliest days they realized, like a ship- 
wrecked crew on a life-raft, that they must sink or 
swim together ; and now, in the thirteenth century, 
although the aristocracy was visibly set apart from 
the rest of the people, high and low recognized that, 
as they had the same interests, union was vital to 
all. The great majority who were never to be en- 
rolled in the Golden Book could go on claiming 
liberty as their birthright ; just as the English yeo- 
man, who had until recently no voice in Parliament 
or even in the local affairs of his village, regarded 
himself as the inheritor of the ancient English liber- 
ties. In one case and in the other the assumption 
was well founded ; for the Venetian like the Eng- 
lishman did actually enjoy the essentials of free- 
dom, which are not always linked with political 
rights. 

The surest proof of the fundamental harmony of 
classes in Venice lies in the equality of all citizens 
in the eyes of the law. A century before the S errata, 
Doge Enrico Dandolo began to codify the laws 
(1195). Under Jacopo Tiepolo, about 1232, com- 



v FIXING THE CONSTITUTION 111 

plete civil, criminal, and nautical statutes were 
drawn up, which bear witness to the advanced civili- 
zation of the community whose morals they reflect. 
There was, indeed, no trial by jury ; but a defend- 
ant had every means accorded him to prove his 
innocence in the court which had jurisdiction over 
his case ; the state provided counsel for him if he 
were poor ; if he were declared guilty, the sentence 
imposed must be concurred in by independent mag- 
istrates before it could be carried out ; and even after 
a criminal was imprisoned, two councilors visited 
his cell once a month to hear his grievances and re- 
port on them to the Doge. That justice was done 
without respect to persons seems to be beyond 
contradiction, no matter how much deduction we 
make for the usual discrepancy between the written 
law and its actual application ; and it was this bond 
of equality, more durable than any political com- 
pact, which, with her geographical isolation, made 
Venice the most stable of all governments. 

Nevertheless, the Closing of the Great Council 
was not accomplished without some protest. The 
story goes that in 1300 Marin Bocconio, a rich citi- 
zen not entitled to nomination to the Council, gath- 
ered a few score sympathizers and marched to the 
Palace, where they knocked boldly on the door and 
demanded to be admitted to take part in their 
country's affairs. They were admitted one by one, 
according to an old tale, and immediately executed, 
the dwindling remnant of waiters outside not sus- 
pecting what had befallen their companions. A 



112 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

more likely account states that the Doge got wind 
of the plot and had the troop of protestants arrested 
and tried before they came to violence ; their ring- 
leaders were hanged, head downwards, between the 
columns in the Piazzetta. What are we to surmise 
from such swift and terrible punishment? Had 
Bocconio behind him a vast number of persons, 
eager to rebel at the first suspicious signal ? AYas 
the oligarchy so nervous that even his small follow- 
ing frightened it into unnecessary slaughter ? Did 
it choose this way of announcing once for all that 
it would tolerate no political discussion ? Or was it 
merely that the Doge, Pietro Gradenigo, had a habit 
of treating his enemies with merciless vigor ? 

Gradenigo lived to weather a more formidable 
tempest, which burst upon Venice in 1310. The 
chief conspirator was Bajamonte Tiepolo, grandson 
of the Doge, Lorenzo, who had among his accom- 
plices members of the Querini and Badoeri families, 
patricians like himself of ancient lineage, together 
with their adherents and a considerable following 
of the common people. The movement was clearly 
aristocratic, and in spite of the pretense that it 
aimed at restoring the ancient popular government, 
its real motives seem to be due to private griev- 
ances of the Querini and Badoeri, and to the per- 
sonal ambition of Tiepolo. Gradenigo's harshness 
had exasperated all these men, and his quarrel with 
the Pope and with Ferrara, resulting in commercial 
disaster and hard times, had aroused general dis- 
content. How much an intelligent opposition to 



v FIXING THE CONSTITUTION 113 

the Great Council helped to add strength to the 
cause can only be conjectured. The Tiepolo 
family had long been popular, and Bajamoute 
might count not only on this inherited good will, 
but on the enthusiasm which he himself kindled. 
The people called him " the Great Knight " ; his 
friends looked to him for decisive counsel and 
valiant deeds. 

During many months the conspiracy grew in 
secret. Then, the time being ripe, it was planned 
that very early in the morning of June 15, 1310, 
Tiepolo should lead a band of armed men into the 
Piazza of St. Mark through the narrow Merceria 
lane, and that simultaneously Marco Querini should 
appear with another band by the Ponte de' Dai. 
Badoer, who hurried to the mainland to collect a 
third body of allies, was to bring his force by 
water, seize the Grand Canal, and join his friends 
in the Piazza. When dawn came, a terrific storm, 
with thunder and lightning, broke over the city ; 
but the conspirators, who had been hiding in the 
Querini Palace beyond the Rialto, resolved to start. 
Querini's men, either because they had a shorter 
route or a swifter gait, reached the Piazza first. 
There, to their surprise, they found a large force 
of the Doge's followers drawn up, a traitor, Marco 
Donati, having revealed the plot to Gradenigo. 
Querini dashed bravely at the enemy, but his 
troop was quickly cut to pieces, and he and his 
son were slain. A few moments later, when 
Tiepolo's men issued in two divisions on the Pi- 
i 



114 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

azza, one by the way of the present Clock Tower 
and the other by S. Basso, they saw a heap of 
dead and dying comrades, and the ducal forces 
flushed with one victory and eager for another. 
Nothing daunted, Tiepolo led a charge; there 
was furious hand-to-hand fighting, and then, after 
a brief space, the conspirators gave way and 
rushed by whatever outlet they could from the 
Square. The tumult had by this time awakened 
the citizens, who ran to the windows and pelted 
or jeered the fugitives. One woman, whether acci- 
dentally or not, brushed from her window-sill a 
flowerpot which struck and killed Tiepolo's stand- 
ard bearer. Into the mud dropped the banner, with 
its motto " Liberty," and no one rescued it. The 
day was lost. 

Tiepolo and the remnant of his force did not, 
however, despair. They reached their quarter 
beyond the Kialto, having hewn down the Kialto 
bridge, then of wood, and fortified themselves in 
their houses, which were solid enough to stand a 
siege. Badoer was intercepted on the Lagoon, but 
Tiepolo held out so successfully that the Doge, 
fearful lest a long struggle might lead to a general 
rising, offered amnesty for the underlings and mere 
banishment for the heads of the conspiracy. The 
mild terms were accepted, and we hear of no more 
disorder. From a distance, Tiepolo continued to 
plot and to hope, and he doubtless had friends in 
the city who kept his cause alive; but nothing 
came of it, and nearly twenty years later he van- 



v FIXING THE CONSTITUTION 115 

ished from the scene. Historians and romancers 
have made the most of this episode ; yet when we 
measure it calmly, it seems not more important 
than Jack Cade's rebellion in England, nor more 
formidable than Aaron Burr's treason in the United 
States. We would fain see in it a high, patriotic 
motive, and yet what strikes us throughout is the 
working of personal resentment and of ambition. 

Bajamonte Tiepolo's fleeting conspiracy had one 
lasting result, it called into existence the Coun- 
cil of Ten as the supreme executive branch of the 
state. Since the Closing of the Great Council, 
experience showed that the Venetian constitution 
provided for everything except this. The Doge, 
theoretically the chief executive, was too much 
restricted to act quickly. The Great Council was 
too unwieldy ; no assembly, numbering many hun- 
dred members, has ever succeeded in both execu- 
tive and legislative work. Even the Senate, the real 
core of the Great Council, and the masters of the 
Republic, were too large a body for carrying out 
promptly the details of government, and for assur- 
ing a compact, vigorous, and uninterrupted policy. 
Tiepolo's outbreak revealed this grave defect, and 
on July 10, 1310, less than a month after the affair 
collapsed, the Great Council voted that ten persons 
should be nominated by itself and ten by the Doge 
and his advisers, and that from these twenty a com- 
mittee of ten should be chosen by the Great Council 
to take steps for the safety of the Republic. This 
committee, temporary in its origin, was continued 



116 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP, v 

from term to terra, until on July 20, 1335, it was 
declared permanent. * 

Few legislative bodies have been so generally 
misunderstood as this Council of Ten. It has been 
painted as a group of fiends, pitiless, self-seeking, 
delighting in torture ; in reality, the Ten were the 
Venetian cabinet, probably the most hard-working 
body, generation after generation, in the world. 
They deliberated in secret, as cabinets do to-day, 
but their procedure was governed by strict rules, 
and their public acts, which often seemed summary, 
were the result of careful discussion. Every device 
was adopted to withdraw the Ten from the least cor- 
rupting influence. Personal aggrandizement was 
cut off, for the Ten held office for only a year, and 
each new council was quick to scrutinize the acts 
of its predecessor. The Ten punished severely but 
not inhumanly, according to the standard of the 
time ; their secrecy was their most questionable 
weapon, but they were numerous enough with 
the Doge and his six councilors, seventeen persons 
sat at its sessions to render real secrecy impos- 
sible and long-continued collective inhumanity im- 
probable. Without rest they worked for Venice; 
and if we judge by their results, running through 
four centuries, we shall conclude that they have 
been surpassed by no other similar body in sagacity, 
in ability, and in single-minded devotion to state 
interests. With the creation of the Council of Ten, 
Venice completed her political organism. 



CHAPTER VI 

PERILS OF THE NEW REGIME 

THE reign of Pietro Gradenigo (1289-1311), like 
that of Enrico Dandolo a century earlier, marks a 
crisis in Venetian history. The Closing of the 
Great Council, the creation of the Ten, the reorgan- 
ization of executive and administrative powers to 
conform to the remodeled constitution, are signs 
that the Republic had reached maturity. Through 
Dandolo, Venice converted her commercial interests 
into imperial responsibilities in the Orient; through 
Gradenigo, she adopted what proved to be her final 
political machinery. All her future achievements 
were to be made with the tools now forged. The 
oligarchy could never have established itself so 
quickly, and on the whole so quietly, unless the 
Venetians had come through the intuition which 
springs from social experience to perceive that that 
was the natural form for their government to take. 
Bocconio's brief flurry, Bajamonte Tiepolo's meteoric 
conspiracy, simply serve to gauge the overwhelming 
strength of the current which engulfed them. 

That this change was effected without serious 
internal upheavals is all the more noteworthy, be- 
cause Gradenigo's reign was beset by foreign diffi- 
117 



118 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

culties and disasters. The Genoese annihilated the 
Venetian fleet at Curzola (1298) and threatened to 
take the lead again in the Levant. Zara, abetted 
by the King of Hungary, rebelled. Relations with 
Padua became unsettled a bad omen, because 
Venice depended chiefly on the Paduan and Tre- 
visan markets for her food. Worst of all, by inter- 
fering in a local quarrel at Ferrara, she brought 
on herself the Interdict of the Pope, who claimed 
suzerainty in that city. The Interdict proved to be 
a very terrible curse ; not so much because it inter- 
rupted the church ceremonies, which were a part of 
the daily life of the time, as because it absolved every 
one from keeping with the Venetians the laws of com- 
mon humanity. To give a Venetian food or lodging 
was declared a mortal sin ; but to refuse to pay a 
debt justly owed him, or to seize his goods, or to 
rob his stores, or to kill him even these were 
meritorious acts. Such the monstrous perversion 
of morals which the Roman hierarchs connived at 
in the name of Jesus Christ. The Venetians soon 
found their trade paralyzed and their food supply 
imperiled; for their rivals grasped eagerly this 
chance, offered by the Church, of injuring them 
without danger of reprisal. When the masses felt 
the pinch of privation, they clamored against the 
war, which had never been popular ; but Gradenigo 
stood firm, and at his death (1311) he left the 
Interdict among his legacies to his successor. 

Although we cannot tell in detail how far the 
fateful changes of his reign were due to him, Pietro 



vi PERILS OF THE NEW REGIME 119 

Gradenigo was, without question, one of the most 
imperious of the doges. A steadfast friend and an 
unrelenting enemy, he had the art of so weaving 
his passions into his country's policy that they look 
to us identical with it. More than that, he made 
the cause of a caste the cause of the state. He pre- 
ferred craft to force, but he had no scruples against 
using any weapon which the occasion called for. 
In his tenacity, which some called stubbornness 
and others prejudice, he resembled the Younger 
Pitt; and he had, despite his class partisanship, 
Pitt's way, the statesman's way, of taking large 
views of international issues. Like Pitt, too, he 
was indifferent to popular odium and unshaken by 
disasters abroad. Like Pitt, he died at a moment 
when his twenty years' rule had plunged his coun- 
try into calamities. 

To succeed him, the electors chose Marino Zorzi, 
an octogenarian, whom they happened to see cross- 
ing the Square on one of the errands of mercy which 
earned him the reputation of saint. They hoped 
that his piety might persuade Clement V to rescind 
the Interdict; but the good man died in a few 
months, and his successor, Giovanni Soranzo, found 
the payment of one hundred thousand ducats much 
more efficacious in placating the Pope. Clement V, 
true to the immemorial practice of the Holy See, 
granted Divine favor for gold. The Papacy had 
apparently been successful in its blackmail for 
that is what the Interdict amounted to ; but it was 
such actions as this which were slowly arousing 



120 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

the conscience of Christendom against the most 
corrupt of human institutions. The Papal juggling 
of the things of God with the things of Mammon 
had already led to the exile at Avignon ; in the 
next century the Papacy was to be punished by 
the Great Schism, and then to be disrupted by the 
Reformation. 

Doge Soranzo did the state more than one shin- 
ing service. He put down the rebellion at Zara; 
he strengthened the navy so that, while there was 
no open war, it checked Genoese depredations ; and, 
above all, he extended, by commercial treaties, the 
trade of Venice. The real strength of the Repub- 
lic appeared in its rapid recovery from the disasters 
of Gradenigo's reign. The ensign of St. Mark's was 
soon seen again in every port, and about this time 
the introduction of the manufacture of mirrors and 
an improved method of silk weaving opened new 
sources of wealth. The general acceptance of the 
oligarchic regime produced an internal calm in 
which all classes prospered. The gradual trans- 
forming of the Council of Ten into a permanent 
institution completed the structure of the state, 
giving it an organ by which it could both act 
promptly and hand on a continuous policy. In 
compactness, in average wealth, in ability to focus 
her power quickly at a given point, and to maintain 
it unimpaired for a long time, not less than in gen- 
eral civilization, Venice surpassed all her neighbors. 
In 1325 she seemed impregnable. 

By this date, Europe was entering a new epoch. 



vi PERILS OF THE NEW REGIME 121 

The Church and the Empire, which during four 
centuries had struggled for mastery in the West, 
had worn each other out. In every country, politi- 
cal states were forming, usually on dynastic princi- 
ples, and even the nominal suzerainty of the Empire 
had ceased to be respected. In Italy, the little 
medieval republics had nearly run their course; 
the single despot, or a family of tyrants, was stran- 
gling the free municipalities. The Church also, 
although it still had large capacity for doing harm, 
as when it proclaimed an interdict, was no 
longer held in awe. Innocent III smote terror into 
the hearts of kings ; Boniface VIII used the same 
words, but terrified nobody. 

These changes called for a readjusting of Vene- 
tian policy. The Republic could no longer lean 
now toward the Pope and now toward the Em- 
peror, according as one or the other seemed less 
likely to injure her. She had to deal with her im- 
mediate neighbors, the despots of the mainland, 
whose mutual quarrels caused the situation to dis- 
solve and reform as swiftly as the delirium of a 
fever patient. Amid the whirligig of change there 
was no principle, save change, on which to base her 
calculations. A compact made with the lord of 
Padua in the spring might be worthless by autumn, 
for then a new lord might rule in Padua. After 
long navigating by trade winds, she had come to a 
region of squall and hurricane. Only in the Orient 
did her traditional rivalry with the Genoese con- 
tinue unabated. 



122 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

That Venice should reach the fourteenth century 
without gaining a foothold on the mainland, from 
which only a narrow stretch of Lagoon separated 
her, is indeed remarkable. Chance, or a sudden 
caprice for conquest, or the settlement of some war 
claim, might have thrust territory upon her; but 
in nothing did the Venetians show their political 
sagacity so plainly as in their refusal to be lured 
shoreward. They were a sea people, who knew 
that their safety lay on the sea. Their narrow 
stretch of Lagoon was a frontier more difficult than 
the Alps for an enemy to cross. They had always 
taken care that the masters of the mainland should 
not trouble Venetian trade. They often interfered 
to punish trespassers on their rights, or to secure 
larger concessions, or to support a friendly ruler at 
war with one of their enemies ; but, having gained 
their end, they resisted the temptation to owner- 
ship. In Gradenigo's reign, however, Venice aban- 
doned her historical policy and accepted Ferrara, 
where she had many commercial interests, from one 
of the claimants to the lordship of that city. The 
Pope, as we just now saw, happened to be another 
claimant, and by resorting to the Interdict he 
succeeded in upholding his suzerainty over the 
Ferrarese. 

Although balked in their first move, the Vene- 
tians began to regard expansion westward as more 
aud more natural, and events soon combined to 
convince them that it would be beneficial if not 
indispensable. Padua, their nearest neighbor, was 



vi PERILS OF THE NEW REGIilE 123 

dominated by the Carrara family, Verona by the 
Scaligers, Milan by the Visconti. Of these, the 
Scaligers were by so far the most powerful that 
they threatened to subjugate all their rivals 
and set up a kingdom in Northern Italy. By 
1329 they controlled not only Verona, Brescia, and 
Vicenza, but Feltre and Belluno, which com- 
manded the passes to the north, besides Treviso, 
mistress of the plain from which Venice drew her 
provisions, and Padua, where the Carrara were 
reduced to vassalage. The Scaligers had evidently 
no intention of stopping there. They broke up 
long-standing commercial agreements and refused 
to negotiate new ones. 

In Venice the war party prevailed. The new 
Doge, Francesco Dandolo, urged a further delay, 
and set forth with due emphasis the peril of giving 
up the policy which had been their safeguard for 
nine hundred years ; but present needs outweighed 
every appeal to tradition. There was no arguing 
away the fact that if Delia Scala owned the prov- 
ince on which Venice relied for food, he held her at 
his mercy. So the Republic resolved to crush him, 
or at least to wrest from him so much of the main- 
land as she needed for her food ; 1329, the year of 
this decision, marks another turning-point in the 
career of Venice. 

She did not embark on the war recklessly, but 
formed a coalition with Florence, from which Lucca 
had lately been seized by the Scaligers, and with 
Visconti, who knew that his rival would attack 



124 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

Milan at the first opportunity. Alberto de' Rossi, 
lord of Parma, joined the league; and so did the 
King of Bohemia and the Duke of Carinthia, whose 
frontiers had been encroached upon. As soon as 
fortune began to favor the allies, other Lombard 
princes Obizzo d' Este and Gonzaga of Mantua 
came over to them, and, finally, Massilio Carrara, 
who held Padua for Delia Scala, agreed to betray 
the city into their hands. As a reward for his 
treachery he was continued in his lordship there. 
After nearly ten years of fighting, Delia Scala sued 
for a peace (January, 1337-8), by the terms of 
which Venice profited most. She acquired the 
Trevisan, besides Bassano and Castelbaldo, and she 
exercised a virtual protectorate over Padua; the 
passage of the Po was made free, the old commer- 
cial treaties were renewed. But Delia Scala refused 
to surrender Lucca to the Florentines, or Padua to 
De' Rossi. The other allies fared better ; for even 
when they received no direct increase of territory, 
they suffered no loss, and they had the satisfaction 
of knowing that the supremacy of the Scaligers was 
crippled. 

Henceforth, the possession of that small province 
on the mainland is a large factor in the destiny of 
Venice. It makes her a party to the incessant 
struggles of the North Italian despots. It gives 
them the chance to assail her, which they never had 
before; because till now the Lagoon was her un- 
failing bulwark. Now she has no strategic fron- 
tier; nor shall she find one, though she expand 



vi PERILS OF THE NEW REGIME 125 

westward over all Lombardy. There are only 
rivers which serve to mark boundaries, but not to 
hinder a determined foe. Manifestly, the Trevisan 
is no finality ; it gives her the indispensable meat 
and corn, but it lays on her the burden of further 
conquest. 

For the present, the Venetians saw only the 
benefits which they had won, their defeat of a 
neighbor more malignant than Ezzelino, and their 
relief from the danger of being cut off from food. 
They at once devised a liberal government for 
Treviso, their purpose being to leave undisturbed 
as much of the old order as was compatible, instead 
of forcing on an unwilling people a system which 
they would hate because it was foreign. Most of 
the officials, except the highest, were natives ; the 
2)odesta, or governor, was usually an outsider, chosen 
by the local council. This harmonized with the 
common practice of the Italian cities during the 
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, when, to pre- 
vent party or family feuds, a stranger, who could 
be neutral, was called in as municipal head. No 
other state furnished so many poclest&s as Venice, a 
fact which bears witness to the inbred statesman- 
like quality of her sons. Her care to respect local 
rights and to provide that the advantages of the 
new connection between herself and Treviso should 
be really reciprocal, made her rule so popular that 
many a tyrant-tormented city hankered after it. 

To convince her dependants that they were all 
members of one family, in whose common pros- 



126 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

perity each could share, became the policy which 
she consistently followed on the mainland. En- 
lightened self-interest, if not generosity and love 
of fair play, warned her against turning over the 
offices wholesale to her own office seekers, and from 
levying exorbitant customs for the sake of enrich- 
ing a few monopolists at home. She knew that the 
cost of an army maintained to suppress a people 
irritated by tariff injustice, or perhaps driven to 
desperation by famine, must far exceed any profit 
which such a measure might bring. We must not, 
however, exaggerate her virtue by implying that 
she always lived up to her ideal. Complete politi- 
cal disinterestedness was an anachronism in 1340, 
just as it is in 1905 ; and the minute precautions 
which the Signory took to prevent peculation and 
injustice on the part of its officials abroad show 
that transgressions must have been frequent ; they 
show also that the Signory's intentions were fair. 
The shortness of the term for which those officials 
were appointed, usually only a year or sixteen 
months, proved a strong incentive to the very evils 
it was intended to avert. On the whole, however, 
Venice was centuries ahead of other nations in this 
matter, as any one can see who compares her 
general treatment of her mainland provinces with 
England's treatment of Ireland down through the 
nineteenth century. 

But in encouraging the prosperity of all her 
possessions, and even in allowing them to retain 
a large part of their independence in local affairs, 



vi PERILS OF THE NEW REGIME 127 

Venice did not think of admitting them to equality 
with herself. She might enroll Trevisan magnates 
among her patricians, but she gave Treviso no voice 
in her Great Council. Candia revolted in the hope 
of securing representation in the central govern- 
ment ; Venice crushed the revolt and its motive. 
She would never listen to any scheme of federa- 
tion. The representative system had never been 
her system, why, then, should she adopt it for the 
sake of her tributaries ? The ancient Roman 
Republic wrought through one political organism ; 
medieval Venice through another; the modern 
constitutional state works through yet another: it 
is by no means certain that any of them would 
have been improved by borrowing the strong points 
peculiar to the others, but it is certain that such 
combinations no more occur in history than a cross 
between an elephant and a tiger occurs in nature. 
When we would follow the growth of representa- 
tive government, we look to the Anglo-Saxon race ; 
and yet the English Parliament, which originated 
and grew by virtue of this principle, would not 
after its colonists had been one hundred and fifty 
years in America extend it to them, who were not 
conquered peoples, but England's own children. 
Our business, therefore, is not to declare that 
Venice made a mistake in rejecting what we 
should now call imperial federation, but to observe 
what her system actually was, how far it supplied 
her own needs and those of her dependants, and 
how it compares with the systems of other nations. 



128 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

On the whole, after making due allowance for the 
different standards of well-being, we can affirm 
that the dependants of Venice enjoyed as large a 
share of their products, and were as contented and 
as little tormented and despoiled, as any other 
subject peoples in the world. 

By the peace of 1339 the Republic seemed about 
to enter on a long era of prosperity. She had ably 
conducted a campaign on land and won coveted 
territory a success in which only the immediate 
benefit was as yet apparent. She had placed an 
ally over Padua, which served as a buffer between 
her and the discomfited Scaligers. Above all, she 
had proved herself not less adroit in dealing with 
the new epoch than she had been in the old days of 
the Empire and the Church. In her social con- 
ditions her progress, during the past half-century, 
had been very rapid. Her churches, her palaces, 
her Arsenal, were become famous ; her commoners 
lived in greater comfort and refinement than nobles 
elsewhere, while her nobles displayed a princely 
luxury which the government strove to check by 
sumptuary laws. 

And as if fate had planned that rare combination 
of high conditions and a great man, Andrea Dan- 
dolo was at this juncture elected Doge (1343-54). 
Prom childhood he was fortune's darling. Dis- 
tinguishing himself as a youth at the University of 
Padua, he served as professor of law there, until his 
services were called for by the state. At the age 
of twenty-three he was a Procurator of St. Mark's, at 



vi PERILS OF THE NEW REGIME 129 

twenty -five a Decemvir, then podestd, of Trieste, then 
a commissioner in the field during the last part of 
the war with Scaliger, and finally Doge at thirty- 
six. In addition to his extraordinary gifts in 
scholarship and administration, his character was 
so noble and his manners so winning that the 
Venetians nicknamed him " Count of Virtue " and 
"Courtesy." He is one of the few men of the 
Renaissance who would find himself least a stranger 
were he to come to life now. Under happier con- 
ditions he might have enjoyed the renown of a 
Lorenzo de' Medici. 

But he had hardly put on the corno before fortune 
turned against him. In response to the Pope's 
appeal, Venice joined a coalition against the Turks 
who were beginning to harass the Christians in the 
Levant. The allies destroyed the Turkish flotilla 
and then disbanded, too easily satisfied with a 
superficial success. Soon after, the Venetian fleet 
\vas involved in another quarrel with the Genoese. 
Zara rebelled and had to be reconquered, a task 
which involved a conflict with the Hungarian king. 
In 1348 Venice, in common with "Western Europe, 
was stricken by the Great Plague, which smote her 
just after an earthquake had wrought havoc. The 
pestilence lasted nearly six months and swept away 
more than half the entire population of the Dogado. 
Fifty patrician families were utterly wiped out. 
Even before the plague had spent its force, a revolt 
at Capo d' Istria must be put down ; and then war 
with the Genoese came in earnest. When the 



130 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

Venetians defeated them, the state of Genoa vol- 
untarily sought protection of Giovanni Visconti, 
Lord of Milan, thus making that despot by far too 
formidable. Venice resolved to pursue her advan- 
tage at sea, but in the battle of Sapienza (Novem- 
ber 4, 1354) her ships were overwhelmed. Andrea 
Dandolo did not live to bear that humiliation ; hav- 
ing died a few weeks before (September 7, 1354) 
during the gloom of three earlier reverses. He 
knew that ruin, through no blame of his, hung over 
his country. Yet such was the nobility of his per- 
sonality that, despite the failures, his countrymen 
ever revered him as one of the greatest of their 
doges. The statutes of Venice, which he caused to 
be codified, and the history which he wrote are 
monuments which time cannot wear away. 

To the ordeal of calamity was added the ordeal 
of treason. The electors chose as Doge Marino 
Faliero, a striking example of the type of expert 
public servant that the Kepublic knew how to breed 
and use. Faliero had held many important offices 
at home and many embassies abroad ; he had been 
podestti of Treviso, and in 1346 he commanded the 
army which worsted the King of Hungary at Luca. 
Although seventy-six years old, he enjoyed that 
mature vigor which was not uncommon among 
Venetian statesmen. But he suffered from an un- 
governable temper, which wrecked him and 
threatened to overwhelm the state. The story of 
his conspiracy does not seem to account for so 
grave an affair. 



vi PERILS OF THE NEW REGIME 131 

At one of the Doge's receptions a young noble, 
Michele Steno, talks unbecomingly to one of the 
Dogaressa's ladies. The Doge flies into a passion 
and orders him to be forcibly put out. Steno in 
revenge scribbles over the ducal throne a ribald 
rhyme, scandalizing the Dogaressa. The Council 
try him, and in view of his youth and of the 
hilarity of the occasion, they let him off with a 
light sentence. Faliero feels doubly insulted, and 
secretly vows vengeance on the patriciate. Some 
time later there comes to him to demand justice 
Gisello, Admiral of the Arsenal, who has been 
beaten by a truculent noble. The Doge listens 
eagerly, but shakes his head, and asks with a bitter 
voice, what hope there can be of wringing justice 
from these overweening nobles. " But we bind 
wild beasts," says Gisello; "and when we cannot 
bind, we kill them ! " A look as of a sudden 
inspiration spreads over the Doge's face. He and 
Gisello understand each other and outline a 
plot. 

This meeting of Doge and Gisello takes place 
early in April. In the course of the next week 
perhaps a score of leading conspirators, nearly all 
commoners or plebeians, have been enrolled. The 
plan is simple : very early in the morning of the 
15th, bands of men are to alarm the city by 
sounding the tocsin and by shouting, " The Genoese 
are upon us ! " As the nobles rush into St. Mark's 
Piazza, they are to be slain in detail by squads of 
conspirators stationed at each entrance. Then 



132 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

Faliero will be acclaimed sovereign of the state, 
purged of its oligarchy. 

Up to April 14 all fares well. But on that day 
Beltrame, a furrier, seized with compunction, goes 
to his patron, Lion, who is not in the plot, and 
begs him to stay indoors on the morrow. Lion 
asks why, and little by little worms the secret from 
his friend. An hour or two later he brings the 
news to the Ten and the Forty ; they summon 
police, soldiers, and volunteers, and lay the matter 
before the Doge, who is not yet suspected. He 
' feigns incredulity. But in a few hours the truth 
leaks out. On April 15, Faliero, instead of triumph- 
ing, is under arrest. On 'the 16th he is tried by a 
special tribunal, and, in the face of damning testi- 
mony, he acknowledges his guilt acknowledges 
it bravely, moreover, and declares that it deserves 
the highest penalty. The tribunal sentences him 
to death. 

On the morning of the 17th, Faliero is led to the 
steps outside the Great Council Hall and stripped of 
his ducal corno and other insignia. They put a bla'ck 
skullcap on his head, a black gown on his shoulders, 
and escort him to the landing of the Great Stair- 
case. Neither old age nor fear makes his voice 
quaver as he asks pardon for his great crime. He 
lays his head on the block without flinching, and 
the headsman severs it at one blow. 

Such the gist of the famous conspiracy, so far 
as we are ever likely to know it. But unless we 
assume that wrath is a reason for any strange deed, 



vi PERILS OF THE NEW REGIME 133 

there is evidently much to be explained. A veteran 
statesman of seventy-seven does not make an ac- 
complice of the first chance stranger, to upset the 
government over which he reigns. I suspect that 
the oligarchy doctored the record, just as it took 
care, by the severest penalties against conspirators 
and by generous rewards to informers, to prevent 
further treason. Faliero's penitence on his way to 
execution sounds less natural than the curses which 
Byron makes him utter. And yet the love of Venice 
was so mighty in the hearts of the Venetians, that 
it may have moved even Faliero to bless her before 
she punished him. On the panel in the Ducal 
Palace where his portrait should come in the series 
of the Doges, they painted a blank curtain with 
the motto, Hie est locus Marini Faletro decapitati pro 
cri minibus. It has been shrewdly said of him that 
he first lost his temper and then lost his head. 
The superstitious remembered after his death that 
on his entry to the city as Doge, a heavy fog misled 
his boatmen, so that they landed him alongside of 
the two columns where malefactors were executed, 
and he walked between the columns on his way to 
the Palace. 

Faliero's conspiracy put the Republic to the final 
test, but she did not collapse. During the stormy 
decades which followed she had to cope with Car- 
rara at Padua and the King of Hungary, and with 
a serious rebellion in Candia. She patched up a 
temporary peace with Genoa; she scourged the 
Candiots into submission ; and although she suffered 



134 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP, vi 

in her conflict with her other enemies, yet in the 
end she brought them to terms. The Paduan despot 
(1373) restored her ancient commercial privileges, 
destroyed the forts which he had built along the 
Brenta to injure her, and promised to draw his salt 
supplies from Chioggia. The King of Hungary, 
whose troops had been worsted in the battle of 
Fossa Nuova, had already made peace. A new foe, 
the Duke of Austria, who plunged into a quarrel 
over Trieste, was glad, after a reverse in the field, 
to sell out his Triestine claims. These various suc- 
cesses measured the tenacity of the Republic not 
less than its reserve power and its stability. But 
they indicated also that no permanent peace could 
be hoped for on the mainland, where each of her 
neighbors might become without warning an active 
enemy. In the Levant her position was growing 
worse, and now troubles with her ancient and 
fiercest rival broke out afresh, and hurried her into 
a death grapple with Genoa. 



THE DEATH GRAPPLE WITH GENOA 

THE antagonism between Venice and Genoa, 
which old historians likened to the long struggle 
between Rome and Carthage, lasted ten generations. 
Petrarch, who went to Venice in 1354 to negotiate 
a peace on behalf of Visconti, prophesied that " in- 
evitably, of Italy's two Eyes, one will be put out, 
the other dimmed." To avert that catastrophe, the 
wisest statesmen labored ; but the mutual hatred of 
the republics had become hereditary, and the inter- 
vals of truce between them served only to prepare 
for a new encounter. Rivalry over the trade of the 
Orient, with which was bound up control of the 
Mediterranean, was the incurable cause of their 
enmity. Maritime nations have nearly always 
tended to destroy their competitors. On laud, 
while rivals may fight long and often, they usually 
consent to be kept apart by a frontier; but for 
power which goes in ships, there can be no frontier ; 
the same sea flows into all ports, and wherever the 
sea flows, the hostile ships may sail and meet and 
clash. In the economic life of Venice and Genoa 
the merchandise of the Levant was as integral a 
factor as is the wine product of the Bordelais to 
135 



136 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

France ; but neither republic could incorporate the 
Levant and make it geographically an integral part 
of herself, as the Bordelais is embedded in France 
or Lancashire in England. Hence the precarious 
voyages, the rapidly shifting relations with the 
Oriental marts, the many chances left open for un- 
fair dealing. And when there was not actual war, 
there might be almost equal damage from corsairs, 
who flourished till recent times. Justice has never 
been a sea goddess. 

No one with adequate dramatic sense has written 
the history of the wars between Venice and Genoa. 
To do so properly would require a setting forth of 
the constant interplay between the internal condi- 
tions of each republic and their mutual strife, and 
besides this, the reaction of the Eastern Empire on 
its two chief plunderers would need to be analyzed. 
Our purpose here is merely to outline the course of 
this history during its later stages. 

At Trapani, in 1264, the Venetian fleet annihi- 
lated the Genoese; in consequence, the Eastern 
Emperor restored the Venetians to equal trading 
privileges in his empire, and for twenty years the 
rivals got on without open quarrel. Meantime, the 
Mussulmans were spreading through Asia Minor, 
a menace to Greek and Latin Christians alike ; but 
no effective crusade could be organized against 
them. In 1289 they took Jerusalem and Tripoli, 
and snuffed out the flickering Latin kingdom ; in 
1291 they captured Ptolemais, the last Latin 
stronghold in Syria. Thenceforth, the Venetians 



vii THE DEATH GRAPPLE WITH GENOA 137 

arranged commercial treaties with the Turkish 
conquerors as usual, they did not mix business 
and religion and soon their trade revived. But 
the Genoese, who dominated the Bosphorus and 
Black Sea and Avere again the Eastern Emperor's 
favorites, attempted to exclude the Venetians from 
the Dardanelles. Venice was furious. Kich and 
poor joined in fitting out a fleet which under the 
command of Marco Baseio set sail in the spring 
of 1294. Near Ayas, the northeastern bight of the 
Gulf of Alexandretta, Baseio fell in with the Gen- 
oese under Spinola, who, by superior tactics, won 
the battle (May 22, 1294). Exultant over this vic- 
tory, the Genoese equipped an immense armament, 
said to number one hundred and ninety-five sail and 
forty -five thousand men, with which its admiral, 
Uberto Doria, expected to sweep the Venetians from 
the sea. He made a descent on Candia, and his 
countrymen rose and massacred the Venetians at 
Constantinople (1295). This brought retaliation, 
for Ruggiero Morosiui laid waste Pera and the Bos- 
phorus (1296). His colleague, Schiavo, operated 
with less success in the Black Sea. At last the two 
enemies fought a decisive battle on the Dalmatian 
coast. Lambo Doria, commanding seventy-eight 
ships, was discovered in the harbor of Curzola (Sep- 
tember 8, 1296) by Andrea Dandolo commanding 
ninety-five Venetian sail. Doria, although outnum- 
bered, had the heavier craft and the superior posi- 
tion, but at the first onset his line was broken 
through. Soon, however, the Venetians realized 



138 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

the disadvantage of fighting with the sun in their 
eyes and the wind against them. Some of their 
galleys were blown ashore ; the captains of others, 
panic-stricken, began to retreat, leaving a fatal gap 
in the centre, through which Doria drove his ships. 
Nothing now could save the day for the Venetians, 
of whom five thousand were taken prisoners; many 
more were slain, and only the crews of the twelve 
fugitive galleys escaped. Among the prisoners 
were Admiral Dandolo, who dashed out his brains 
rather than rot in a Genoese dungeon, and Marco 
Polo, who spent his captivity writing his travels. 
Doria's victory was complete, but so great were his 
own losses that he could not follow it up. 

The contrast between the two republics was never 
more evident. Although Venice was distracted by 
the constitutional crisis which resulted in the Clos- 
ing of the Great Council, she hardly vibrated at one 
of the worst defeats in her history, and within a few 
weeks she was preparing a new armament. Genoa, 
on the other hand, though victorious in battle, was 
convulsed by a political upheaval which made 'her 
ready to accept Visconti's offer to arbitrate. Before 
peace came, Schiavo, a daring Venetian privateer, 
sailed into the harbor of Genoa, planted the banner 
of St. Mark on one of the quays, struck a coin there 
to commemorate his sauciness, and sailed out again 
unimpeded. The peace, signed on May 25, 1299, 
was to be perpetual, and both parties to it acted in 
apparent sincerity. 

Within a few years, however, bickerings in the 



vii THE DEATH GRAPPLE WITH GENOA 139 

East began anew. Genoese pirates waylaid Vene- 
tian merchantmen ; reprisals followed, Galata was 
destroyed, and Genoa was forced to pay an indem- 
nity (1313). Thirty years later jealousy over the 
trade of the Crimea and Black Sea, which the two 
powers had agreed to share, grew acute, and war 
was declared as soon as they had a little recovered 
from the ravages of the Great Plague (1348). The 
first campaign resulted in a fierce encounter at 
Xegropont between Ruzzini and the Genoese admi- 
ral, in which the latter escaped with part of his 
fleet, only to return with reinforcements and capture 
Negropont, after Ruzzini had taken his prizes home 
(1350). Venice now formed with the King of Ara- 
gon and John Cantacuzenos, the Greek Emperor, a 
league by which they agreed to equip squadrons 
for which Venice should pay in part. The obvious 
strategy was for the Aragonese to attack Genoa; 
but instead of this they joined Niccolo Pisani, the 
Venetian commander, and went in search of the 
Genoese under Paganino Doria, who awaited them 
on the Asiatic shore opposite Constantinople. When 
the allies entered the Golden Horn, where the Greek 
contingent joined them, Pisani advised postponing 
their attack till the next morning ; for it was already 
the late afternoon of a February day, the weather 
was bad, and the current swept with unusual vio- 
lence through the straits. But the Aragonese ad- 
miral, Santa Paola, would not listen to a delay. 
The allies delivered their attack at a disadvantage ; 
the Greek contingent absconded as soon as they 



140 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

got within striking distance ; the Catalans held on 
longer, but they proved inferior, and the Venetians 
had to bear the brunt of the battle. Night had 
fallen, and in the dark it was impossible to dis- 
tinguish friend from foe. At last the Venetians 
withdrew, worsted but not routed, for Doria had 
suffered too much to dare to pursue them (February 
13, 1352-3). 

This battle of the Bosphorus merely stimulated 
both republics to fiercer efforts. Venice continued 
her subsidy to the Catalans, who cooperated with 
Pisani on the coast of Sardinia. On August 29, 
1353, the Genoese, under Griinaldi, unmasked the 
Catalan contingent off Lojera, and was astonished 
to find the entire Venetian fleet accompanying it. 
Pisani made for the open sea, then turned and bore 
down on the enemy. The Genoese fought desper- 
ately ; but when Grimaldi saw that he was losing, 
he had his galley towed out of the battle, and fled 
to Genoa. Only eighteen of his fifty-one galleys 
escaped destruction or capture. 

The news of the disaster at Lojera threw 'the 
Genoese into consternation. That mercurial people, 
which had risen so often after previous calamities, 
fell into a panic in which it imagined that nothing 
could save it from being conquered by the Vene- 
tians, except the protection of Giovanni Visconti, 
the most powerful of the northern despots. Un- 
nerved by terror, the free Republic of Genoa offered 
its independence to the Lord of Milan, who eagerly 
accepted it (October, 1353). 



vn THE DEATH GRAPPLE WITH GENOA 141 

The Genoese were too intent on vengeance to feel 
ashamed of their national cowardice. But Visconti 
had not their ancestral hatred to goad him blindly 
against Venice, and before making war he sent 
Petrarch thither on a peaceful mission. Venice 
declined the overtures. A new Genoese fleet was 
already in the Adriatic, and for six or seven months 
it was hide-and-seek, with occasional skirmishes, 
between the old antagonists, Paganino Doria and 
Niccolo Pisaui. Once Doria sacked the town of 
Parenzo within half a day's sail of Venice, and once 
he prudently declined battle. Late in the season, 
Pisani went into winter quarters at Portolungo, 
opposite the island of Sapienza, not far from Nava- 
rino. Having stationed Querini with twenty gal- 
leys to guard the entrance of the harbor, he docked 
or dismantled the rest of his ships. Doria, hearing 
that the guard was slack, came upon Querini un- 
awares, broke into the harbor, and utterly routed 
the Venetians (November 4, 1354). Pisani and a 
remnant of his force escaped overland to Modon 
and thence home, where he and Queriui were im- 
peached as a sop to popular fury. 

Of all her naval defeats that of Sapienza (or Porto- 
lungo) stung Venice most bitterly. At the time, it 
seemed the harbinger of a complete overthrow ; but 
far from losing heart, she set about hiring merce- 
naries and creating another navy. Fortunately, 
Doria had to lie by for the winter, and before war 
was resumed in the spring a peace was declared, 
the terms of which were so favorable to Venice 



142 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

that we surmise that Genoa, in spite of her great 
victory, did not feel secure (June 1, 1355). 

In comparison with modern naval campaigns 
these which we have so rapidly surveyed are re- 
markable for their duration and their intensity, and 
for their gigantic scale. England has never ha'd 
any naval equipment proportionate to the 45,000 
men and 195 ships which sailed under Uberto Doria 
in 1295; at that time the total population of the 
Genoese Republic probably did not exceed a third 
of a million. In 1329 the conscription at Venice 
for the war against Delia Scala showed 40,000 men 
between the ages of twenty and sixty, which would 
imply about 200,000 inhabitants in the whole city, 
and perhaps half as many more in the Dogado. If 
each republic lost from a third to a half of its 
people in the Great Plague of 1348, some authori- 
ties reckon as high as two thirds, the fleet which 
each sent into action in 1350 represents prodigious 
energy. At Lojera, the Genoese lost 33 of their 51 
galleys, and their loss in men exceeded that in any 
modern sea fight. At the battle of the Nile, Nelson 
had 10 ships and the French had 13 ; Nelson lost 
about 1500 in killed and wounded ; the French lost 
probably 7000 men, and 11 of their ships were 
either destroyed or captured. One of Pisani's 
galleys represented relatively as much fighting 
power as one of Nelson's three-deckers ; for Pisani 
had of course no cannon, and he had to depend 
chiefly on rowing instead of sailing. Consequently, 
where the modern man-of-war or battle-ship carries 



vii THE DEATH GRAPPLE WITH GENOA 143 

a comparatively small crew and only a small force 
of gunners and navigators, the galley required a 
large number of oarsmen (usually convicts or cap- 
tives) and a troop of soldiers archers, swordsmen, 
halbardiers to fight at close quarters, as if on 
land. The average complement of a war galley 
was 180 rowers and 120 officers, soldiers, marines, 
and servants. When we consider the means at 
their command, the immense distances covered by 
the Italian fleets are even more remarkable than 
Nelson's famous pursuit of the French from Corsica 
to the West Indies and back to Aboukir Bay. 
More than one Venetian cruise reached from Venice 
to the Genoese Riviera, thence to Candia, Negro- 
pont, Constantinople, and Syria, and homeward by 
way of Modon and the Dalmatian ports, a distance 
of 4000 or 5000 miles. Think what it meant to be 
a galley slave ! 

The peace between Venice and Genoa lasted 
nearly twenty-five years. It ended in the culmi- 
nation of several antagonisms. In the first place, 
the presence of the Venetians on Terra Firma had. 
become rasping to her neighbors. The Carraresi, at 
Padua, w r ho were to serve as a screen between her 
and the Scaligers, had now grown to be great des- 
pots themselves, eager to extend their Paduan state 
at the expense of the Republic. The Duke of Aus- 
tria coveted the rich plains to the south of the 
Alpine passes which he controlled. The Patriarch 
of Aquileia nursed an immemorial grievance against 
the Republic, which had shorn him of his ecclesi- 



144 A SHORT HISTORY OP VENICE CHAP. 

astical primacy and was reaping most of his com- 
merce. The King of Hungary, a competitor for the 
Venetian possessions on the eastern Adriatic, had 
designs on the Marches of Ancona, and saw his 
profit in aiding any attempt that might weaken 
Venice. In the Orient there were the old motives 
for a quarrel with Genoa, and there was recent 
irritation. The Venetians had coerced the Greek 
Emperor into ceding the island of Tenedos to them. 
The Genoese, having vainly protested, deposed the 
Emperor and enthroned his son ; but the Venetians 
would not give up the island, which commands the 
western entrance to the Dardanelles. So Genoa 
declared war, and easily persuaded the Lord of 
Padua, the King of Hungary, the Duke of Austria, 
and the Patriarch of Aquileia to join a coalition for 
crushing Venice. Never before, since she rose to 
greatness, had the Eepublic been so imperiled. 

Although her only ally was Beruabo Visconti, 
who proved less helpful than she expected, she 
took up the challenge proudly. At this crisis 
she had as Doge Andrea Contarini, a wise, resolute, 
and popular old man, ripe in experience, and so 
modest that he thrice refused the ducal crown, 
until the Senate threatened to banish him unless 
he accepted it. For commander of the fleet, Vettor 
Pisani was chosen, the most illustrious of all the 
great sea fighters to whom the gonfalon of St. Mark 
was intrusted. He was the son of Niccolo Pisani, 
under whom he had served at Portolungo, and he 
had been Captain of the Gulf, that officer whose 



vn THE DEATH GRAPPLE WITH GENOA 145 

duty it was to patrol the northern Adriatic. He 
was now fifty-five years old, hot-tempered, noble- 
hearted, master of the art of naval warfare, a pas- 
sionately devoted son of Mother Venice. Scarcely 
less remarkable than these was Carlo Zeno, whose 
life had been a series of romantic exploits, who 
loved danger as the Swiss loves mountain air, and 
who nevertheless had in him, like his Elizabethan 
aftercomers, Raleigh, Hawkins, Drake, the stuff 
which differentiates great captains from mere dare- 
devil adventurers. 

In April, 1378, Pisani, having received the ban- 
ner from the Doge, and a blessing from the Arch- 
bishop, set sail with a vanguard of fourteen galleys, 
and on May 30 he encountered the Genoese admiral, 
Luigi de' Fieschi, at Capo d' Anzio, near the mouth 
of the Tiber. After a sharp battle he captured 
Fieschi and five galleys ; but as his squadron was 
too weak to warrant a descent on Genoa, he re- 
turned to the Adriatic and chastised several rebel- 
lious cities along the eastern coast. The Genoese 
populace, enraged by their first defeat, rushed to 
the Ducal Palace, deposed Doge Campofregoso, and 
set up Doge Guarco in his stead. Yet the local 
turbulence did not long interrupt the Genoese cam- 
paign ; so that before winter they had a formidable 
fleet in commission. Pisani, by order of the Senate, 
which overruled his advice, spent the winter at 
Pola. 

When spring came, the Senate persisted in for- 
bidding him to return, although his crews were 



146 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

much reduced by disease and his ships required 
overhauling. On May 7, 1379, the Genoese fleet of 
twenty -three galleys and two galleons, commanded 
by Luciano Doria, appeared off Pola. Pisani held 
a council of war, at which he urged that in their 
condition they should avoid a battle ; but the pro- 
ved itors, whom the Senate sent to oversee the naval 
operations, construed prudence as. cowardice, un- 
worthy and un- Venetian, and he yielded to their 
clamor. "Very well," he said; "let whoever loves 
St. Mark follow me ! " and he led them straight at 
the foe. But neither his courage nor a momentary 
success availed. The Genoese feigned a retreat: 
the Venetians pursued pell-mell ; and then the 
Genoese wheeled round and routed them. Pisani 
himself barely escaped with six galleys to Parenzo. 
A month later he was taken manacled to Venice 
and condemned to six months' imprisonment, and 
was deprived of the power of holding office for five 
years, to punish him "for not taking due precau- 
tions at Pola." 

Such dismay as shook Venice that summer sur- 
passed the days of the Great Plague or of Sapienza. 
But the venerable Contarini did not lose heart, and 
the government prepared to defend the capital. 
Fortifications were thrown up on the Udi ; ships 
laden with stones were sunk at the mouth of the 
Lido port; every citizen capable of bearing arms 
was mustered into a volunteer corps ; a committee 
of public safety sat permanently in the Ducal 
Palace ; lookouts watched in the campanili to give 



vii THE DEATH GRAPPLE WITH GESOA 147 

notice of the first strange sails along the southern 
horizon. Another Doria, Pietro, had entered the 
Adriatic with reinforcements, and having joined 
the fleet victorious at Pola, he was reconquering the 
Dalmatian and Istrian cities taken by Pisani the 
previous year. He came up the coast deliber- 
ately, and although only meagre news, or none, of 
his progress reached the Venetians, they knew 
every night that he was a stage nearer than in 
the morning. The suspense became fearful. At 
what point would he strike? And all the while 
the Venetian campaign on the mainland grew worse 
and worse. The allies took the unfortified towns, 
ravaged the country, and besieged the cities. When 
the Venetians sent an embassy to the Hungarian 
king, he proposed terms so dishonorable that Venice, 
although driven to bay, rejected them. 

At last, Doria, with forty-seven Genoese ships, 
appeared off the coast. On August 6 he attempted 
to capture Malamocco, but being repulsed he 
burned Pelestrina, seized Little Chioggia, and pro- 
ceded to attack Chioggia itself. Pietro Enio, the 
podestcl, held out bravely with three thousand men, 
but on August 16 the Genoese, having gained the 
bridge which led into the town, pursued the Vene- 
tian garrison into their quarters and compelled 
them to surrender. Venice was now hemmed in, 
for Doria's galleys could at will sail out and guard 
the coast, while the allies on land drew their 
cordon to the edge of the Lagoon. 

That evening the news reached Venice, and the 



148 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

tolling of the great bell of St. Mark's warned the 
people of the capital and the neighboring islands 
of the disaster. The next day the Signory chose 
Taddeo Giustiniani as captain-general ; but the 
populace refused to serve under him, and clamored 
for Pisani. The Signory reluctantly gave in, 
and on the evening of the 18th a delegation of 
senators went to his prison to release him. He 
asked to be allowed to spend that night in prayer 
and contemplation. At daybreak on the morrow 
the senators and a large crowd of the people re- 
turned to his dungeon. As soon as the door was 
unlocked, the people lifted him to their shoulders 
and carried him triumphantly to the Palace. When 
they shouted, "Long live our Vettor Pisani!" he 
bade them shout instead, " Long live St. Mark ! " 
The Doge and senators received him graciously, 
acknowledging by their manner, if not by words, 
that they had made a mistake which their love for 
Venice did not let them persist in, and Pisani 
showed neither resentment nor arrogance. Venice 
must be saved, and all her sons must unite to save 
her. The annals of patriotism record nothing 
nobler than his magnanimity. Patriots always 
have been willing to die for their country ; Vettor 
Pisani consented to live and work for Venice under 
a government which had forced him to act against 
his judgment, and had then punished him for the 
ensuing failure. 

His generosity was without reserve. He silenced 
the populace which began to suggest that he should 



vii THE DEATH GRAPPLE AVITH GENOA 149 

become dictator. Under his electric guidance all 
went swiftly. To Taddeo Giustiniani, his jealous 
rival, he assigned the command of three galleys. 
He substituted stone for wooden forts at the Lido, 
organized the volunteers, built stone walls from the 
Lido to Santo Spirito, created a large mosquito fleet 
of flat-bottomed boats, and set a host to equip the 
half-finished ships at the Arsenal. In three days 
the galleys were seaworthy ; within a week the 
preparations to defend the city were complete. 
Passionate resolve supplanted consternation. 

Such speed was indispensable, for Doria, having 
let slip the chance to move on Venice immediately 
after taking Chioggia on August 16, threw a large 
force on the island of Malamocco, and on August 
24, in concert with Carrara's troops, he attacked the 
Venetian outposts near S. Kiccolo and on the islets 
of Santo Spirito and Santa Maria. But he failed 
to dislodge Pisani's troops, and having convinced 
himself that the city could not be stormed, he with- 
drew in October to Chioggia to establish a blockade. 

The Venetians quickly measured the ordeal before 
them, the sternest ordeal by which a community can 
be tried, and they met it with the collective courage 
which does not flinch at the slow, unremitting tor- 
ments of starvation. In the early weeks their shal- 
low boats surprised three of the Genoese ships, but 
this exploit, though cheering at the moment, had no 
significance. Week by week the blockade tight- 
ened. Provisions grew scarce, and no replenishing 
from the outside was to be hoped for. Distress 



150 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

made all classes kin. " If you have no food," said 
Pietro Mocenigo, in the Doge's behalf to the multi- 
tude, " go to the houses of the patricians, who will 
share their last crust with you." All business was 
suspended, because the only business possible was to 
keep alive, and to repel the Genoese. Eich and 
poor gave out of their means to the public purse. 
A forced loan at five per cent, produced 6,294,040 
lire. Women offered their silver, their jewelry, their 
precious stones, even the clasps of their belts. And 
as a further incentive, the Signory decreed that 
when the war was finished, the thirty families 
which contributed most should be admitted to the 
Great Council ; that five thousand ducats a year 
should be divided among the most patriotic of the 
poor; and that foreigners who gave the greatest 
aid should be eligible to citizenship. 

Still, day by day, and week by week, the horrors 
of the blockade increased. Doria down at Chioggia 
and Carrara on the mainland, simply by sitting 
motionless, were wearing out their prey. Visconti, 
the Kepublic's sole ally, created no diversion. The 
whole world through, the famishing Venetians had 
but one hope, fast slipping away, that Carlo 
Zeno, who had gone on a roving commission more 
than a year ago, would return and break the block- 
ade. But where was Zeno ? For many months 
they had heard nothing from him. The messages 
they sent could never have reached him ; and either 
he did not know of their desperate situation, or he 
and his fleet had been captured. 



vn THE DEATH GRAPPLE WITH GENOA 151 

Chioggia had fallen in August ; December was 
now well advanced, and with December, keener 
distress. Yet through all these fearful months we 
are conscious that one presence, like Washington's 
at Valley Forge, has diffused its courage among 
high and low, rousing the half-hearted, maintaining 
discipline, shaming the selfish, silencing the least 
whisper of surrender. Vettor Pisani tolerated no 
cowardice, but he knew as well as the most craven 
that the city was doomed, unless it could help itself, 
or Zeno's fleet should come. Zeno might be too 
late; Pisani therefore planned for Venice to save 
herself by blockading the Genoese blockaders. 
Since the Spartans turned the tables on the Athe- 
nians at Syracuse, no similar stroke of military 
genius had been recorded. 

The Venetian Lagoon, it will be remembered, is 
hemmed in on the south by several long sand isl- 
ands, or lidi. On Sottomarina, the southwestern- 
most of these, separated from the low mainland by 
only a narrow channel, is the town of Brondolo ; 
between Sottomariua and the lido of Pelestrina, the 
next to the east, the port of Chioggia opens to the 
sea. Chioggia itself and Little Chioggia lie on 
tiny islands only a few furlongs to the north of 
Sottomarina. From Chioggia to Venice, a distance 
of fifteen miles, the Lombard Canal, skirting the 
inner margin of the lidi, alone offers passage to 
ships of any draught. 

From their post at Chioggia, therefore, the Gen- 
oese stopped all access to Venice through the 



152 SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

canal, and as their ships also patrolled the coast, 
they prevented passage through the Malamocco and 
the Lido ports. Pisani's masterly plan was, by 
closing the Lombard Canal and the ports of Bron- 
dolo and Chioggia, to lock up the Genoese fleet in 
the Chioggian waters. He laid his plan before the 
Signory, which approved it. Thirty-four galleys 
were equipped, and at eight in the evening of 
December 22 they left the capital. Before mid- 
night they reached without resistance the Chioggia 
port. 

As soon as it was light, December 23, Pisani landed 
forty-eight hundred men on the eastern end of Sotto- 
marina in the hope of fortifying them there ; but a 
large force of Genoese drove them back with loss to 
their ships. Pisani achieved his purpose, however, 
for whilst these troops were battling on shore, he 
was sinking two great barges in the port of Chioggia, 
and heaping stones upon them ; so that within a 
few hours he had effectually sealed that exit. The 
following day, he sank more barges in the Brondolo 
channel and closed that; and on Christmas he barred 
the Lombard Canal. These operations, though 
executed swiftly, cost heavily. The crews worked 
waist-high in the water for many hours in the win- 
try weather, and all the while the Genoese by land 
and water kept up a terrific fight. The weather 
was cold, supplies were scanty. After a week of 
these hardships and dangers, Pisani's men, of whom 
not a few were mercenaries, unused to a war to the 
death, began to clamor for a respite. Pisaui ex- 



vii THE DEATH GRAPPLE WITH GENOA 153 

horted, commanded, threatened ; but human nature 
was visibly giving out. Venerable Doge Contarini, 
who had accompanied the expedition, declared that 
he would never return to Venice until Chioggia was 
recaptured. Still, his example failed to revive the 
exhausted crews, and at length Pisani promised 
that, if Carlo Zeno's long-expected fleet did not 
appear by nightfall on January 1, he would aban- 
don the blockade. It was the hero's last resort : 
like Columbus, he staked all on the frailest hope. 

December 30 passed amid suspense, which grew 
more fearful on December 31, as hour dragged on 
after hour without bringing any sign. On New 
Year's Day, the lookouts were as usual at the mast- 
heads, but the forenoon wore away, and they reported 
nothing. Suddenly, one, sharper-eyed than his fel- 
lows, shouted, " A sail to eastward ! " and very soon, 
" More sails ! " and next the crews and officers from 
the decks could descry a fleet pricking above the 
horizon. There were wild shouts, " Zeno ! Vic- 
tory ! " And then, renewed suspense and silence, 
as they remembered that a Genoese fleet was on its 
way to reinforce Doria : what if this were it ? 
This doubt agonized them until the ship that led 
the van had come near enough for them to see its 
banner the Lion of St. Mark, not the standard 
of St. George ! The great cheers broke out afresh ; 
Venice was saved. 

Saved for the moment, at least ; for even with 
Zeno's cooperation the task to be accomplished was 
stupendous. During his year's cruise Zeno had 



154 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

destroyed some seventy Genoese ships, and damaged 
much Genoese seaboard ; but he had not met the new 
fleet with reinforcements. As he insisted on filling 
the place of greatest danger, he was stationed at Bron- 
dolo. Pisani's galleys anchored offshore to inter- 
cept blockade-runners an uncertain berth, at the 
mercy of the wintry gales. In one tempest Zeno's 
cables parted, and he recovered his position only 
with great difficulty. The mercenaries, habitually 
grumbling, at last mutinied, and could be appeased 
only with the promise of plundering Chioggia when 
it fell. But in spite of such hindrances, the Vene- 
tian blockade began to tell on the Genoese; and 
when, on February 13, Zeuo stormed and took Bron- 
dolo, using two huge wooden mortars, which threw 
stone balls weighing one hundred and forty-five and 
one hundred and ninety -five pounds, the army belea- 
guered in Chioggia saw its doom approaching. For 
it had depended on receiving supplies from the Pad- 
uans by way of Brondolo, and henceforth whatever 
came must be smuggled through in small boats. The 
vigilance of the blockaders soon cut off this resource, 
and while they themselves and Venice were once 
more properly fed, the Genoese took their turn at 
famine, bearing it with equal fortitude, and longing 
with equal suspense for their fleet of rescuers. 

Grimaldi, who now commanded there, Pietro 
Doria having been killed, dug a canal across a nar- 
row part of Sottomarina, to try if perchance he 
might break through ; but Pisani thwarted him. 
Then he tore down wooden houses and made flat- 



vii THE DEATH GRAPPLE WITH GENOA 155 

boats on which his troops might escape across the 
Lagoon ; but Zeno headed him off and dashed that 
hope. Pisani could not be induced to order a gen- 
eral assault on Chioggia, although his men and offi- 
cers chafed at the tedious delays ; he knew that 
with patience victory was sure, and he would take 
no risk. At last the dreaded Genoese fleet, under 
Maruffo, appeared off Venice on May 14, but again 
Pisani preferred prudence to the uncertainty of a 
battle, and Maruffo, unable to entice him into the 
open, did not dare to go in and attack him. Almost 
simultaneously another Genoese commander, Spi- 
nola, who had hurried overland to throw a relief 
party into Chioggia, was frustrated. Hot weather 
had set in, and the besieged Genoese died in great 
numbers. Grimaldi was unsuccessful in arranging 
a joint movement with Carrara. Equally vain 
proved his attempt to bribe Pisani's mercenaries 
to desert. He had tried every expedient that cour- 
age or craft or desperation could suggest. And 
now there was no more food; the drinking water 
had been drunk up to the dregs. Brave Grimaldi 
at last surrendered, having endured a twenty-five 
weeks' siege (June 24). Of the great armament 
which a year before embodied the pride and power 
of Genoa, and threatened the very life of Venice, 
only 4170 Genoese troops, with 200 of Carrara's 
auxiliaries and 17 galleys, remained. So famished 
were the prisoners that many of them died after de- 
vouring their first meal ; those who survived were 
humanely cared for at Venice. 



156 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

Before pressing on to complete their task, the 
Venetians gave themselves up to a festival of re- 
joicing. Doge Contarini returned in the Bucentaur 
to the city which owed so much to his fortitude. 
St. Mark's witnessed a solemn thanksgiving for the 
national salvation. 

In July, Pisani set out to sink the Genoese fleet 
under Maruffo, who had been abetting a revolt in 
Istria. Maruffo seems to have had warning of his 
approach, for he divided his force and adopted 
Parthian tactics. At Zara, Pisani learned that 
twelve Genoese galleys were loading with corn at 
Manfredonia. He hurried across the Adriatic with 
part of his ships, and overtaking the foe toward 
evening on August 12 he attacked vehemently ; but 
the Genoese held out till dark, and then escaped. 
Pisani himself died the next day (August 13, 1380) 
at Manfredonia from an acute fever, which had 
stricken him before he left Zara. Ten days later 
all Venice followed his bier to the Church of St. 
Anthony, where he was buried. Universal grief, 
such as a nation seldom experiences more than once 
or twice in its history, was poured out for Pisani, 
and with reason ; for his patriotism shone from first 
to last without a stain, and his genius rescued his 
country from extinction in the most terrible crisis 
she ever knew. Had Genoa conquered, there would 
never have been the Venice which we love. Of all 
the splendid buildings the churches, the palaces, 
the schools, the bell towers, the domes and quays, 
the bridges and magazines which we see to-day, 



viz THE DEATH GRAPPLE WITH GENOA 157 

only St. Mark's Basilica and a few palaces date 
practically unchanged from before the Chioggian 
War. If Genoa had won, the City of the Lagoons, 
reduced to insignificance by her remorseless rival, 
would have moldered like Adria or Aquileia, be- 
yond the world's concern. Never forget, you who 
look on the magic architecture and the matchless 
paintings, that but for Vettor Pisani the nation 
which was to create them might have been 
destroyed. 

Carlo Zeno succeeded Pisani as captain-general, 
but the Genoese persisted in avoiding a set battle 
and gave little further trouble by sea. On land, 
however, the war continued so unfavorably to Ven- 
ice that, rather than have Treviso wrested from her 
by Carrara, she ceded it to the Duke of Austria, 
and so detached him from, the coalition (May 2, 
1381). Deprived of this spoil, Carrara was ready 
to make peace, which was arbitrated by Amadeus 
VI, the Green Count of Savoy, and signed at Turin 
August 8, 1381. Venice had to sacrifice Trieste 
and Tenedos, which she transferred to the Dukes 
of Austria and Savoy respectively ; she renounced 
her claim to Dalmatia; she paid the King of Hun- 
gary an annual sum for consenting to stop manu- 
facturing salt and countenancing privateers ; but she 
recovered her commercial privileges on Terra Firma 
and at Constantinople. If these terms did not give 
her the lion's share, they gave at least as much as a 
state which had so recently been on the verge of 
annihilation could expect. They left her what was 



158 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP, vn 

indispensable to her existence; having that, she 
needed not repine. 

This was the last great war waged between 
Venice and Genoa. They continued to be competi- 
tors in Oriental commerce ; but time soon showed 
that the Chioggian expedition had exhausted Genoa. 
Her internal feuds raged afresh, and after making 
and unmaking ten doges in four years, she threw 
herself upon France and sacrificed her independ- 
ence. She was the medieval prototype of revo- 
lutionary Paris, stormy, unsteady, capable of 
amazing efforts, passionate to the verge of frenzy, 
and yet never so truly content as when tyrannized 
over by a despot. Venice, with her self-control, 
her slowly matured government, her habit of tak- 
ing long views, her solidarity of aims and interests, 
was the opposite of all this. And Venice won; 
but at what a sacrifice ! While the two Italian 
republics wore themselves out in mutual combat, 
the Turk was encroaching on Christendom, Italy 
was being hopelessly torn by factions, new powers 
beyond the Alps were slowly growing up to rule 
the next epoch, in which the great tides of human 
progress should sweep over the Atlantic Ocean 
instead of through the Mediterranean Sea. 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE PARTING OF THE WAYS, 1423 

THE crippling of Genoa assured to Venice the 
commercial supremacy of the Mediterranean ; but 
it did not free her from an Eastern Question, for 
she had henceforth to reckon with the Turks. Her 
immediate concern, however, was with her neigh- 
bors on the mainland. The motive which, years 
before, urged her westward, had lost none of its 
validity : unless she could control the territory 
which produced her food, she must always run the 
risk of having the supplies cut off. No sooner did 
she begin to recover from the strain of the recent 
war the quickness of her recuperation proving 
how much of her reserve power had not been drawn 
upon than she longed to regain her foothold on 
Terra Firma. 

Two difficulties confronted her : one was physi- 
cal and permanent, the great plain of Northern 
Italy offered no strategic frontier which she could 
fortify ; the other was political and shifting, the 
little despotisms changed masters so often that she 
could establish no fixed relations with any one of 
them. Northern Italy was then torn by the efforts 
of successful tyrants to perpetuate their dynasties. 
159 



160 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

A dynasty, once established, has an immense hold 
on the loyalty of its subjects: the Stuarts, for in- 
stance, were as despicable as any house that has 
ruled in England, and yet, thanks to the devotion 
which a dynasty inspires, they had a strong body 
of adherents for nearly a century after James II 
was dethroned. But these Italian despots inspired 
little personal devotion ; they held their supporters 
by terror or money or office. There was no patri- 
otism, no clanship. The day of the mercenary had 
come, when the ownership of cities and states de- 
pended on the greed rather than the valor of paid 
soldiers of fortune. Amid these conditions, dynas- 
ties could not strike deep roots. All depended on 
the personality of the tyrant ; when he died, a new 
combination arose. 

At the end of the fourteenth century, Gian Gale- 
azzo Visconti, Lord of Milan, on whom, in 1395, 
the Emperor Wenceslas conferred the title of 
Duke, was by far the most powerful ruler in 
Italy. A new Scaliger, his nearest neighbor on the 
east, had somewhat revived the fortunes of his 
house at Verona. Between him and Venice lay 
the dominion of Francesco Carrara, the Lord of 
Padua. Among these rivals, which should Venice 
support? She prudently held back for a while, 
and watched Visconti and Carrara overwhelm 
Delia Scala and divide his lands (1387). Then she 
had to choose her side, for Visconti was now bent 
on crushing his late ally, Carrara. Visconti was 
much the stronger, but Carrara was the nearer to 



Tin THE PARTING OF THE WAYS 161 

Venice. If Visconti won, he would indeed be just 
as near ; but as he offered to restore Feltre, Belluno, 
and Treviso, the food-bearing plain and the access 
to the northern passes, she decided to favor him. 
Francesco Carrara, seeing his overtures swept aside, 
and despairing of being a match for both Viscouti 
and Venice, abdicated in favor of his son, Francesco 
Novello. But this did not help. Visconti's troops, 
subsidized in part by Venetian ducats, besieged and 
captured Padua, and gave back to Venice the towns 
agreed upon (1388). Within eighteen months, how- 
ever, Francesco Novello, with only forty intrepid 
followers, came by stealth on Padua, surprised the 
garrison, threw open the gates to a large force, and 
remained master of the city, June 19, 1390. Venice 
was not sorry to see Visconti worsted, for he had 
been an insolent neighbor. She made friends with 
Francesco Novello, granted him money for troops, 
and for ten years let slip no opportunity for harass- 
ing Visconti. 

In spite of the loss of Padua, Gian Galeazzo 
pushed forward his conquests so steadily that in 
1402 he was lord of a greater territory than any 
previous Italian tyrant had ruled. The Viper 
standard floated over all Lombardy, and as far east 
as Vicenza, Feltre, Trent, and Belluno ; over what 
is now Piedmont, as far west as Vercelli, with 
Novara, Tortona, and Alessandria ; and beyond the 
Apennines, it waved over Siena in the heart of Tus- 
cany, and over Perugia in the heart of Umbria; 
it was saluted at Bologna, at the entrance to the 



162 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

Marches, and at Pisa near the Tuscan Sea. If the 
plague had not carried Gian Galeazzo off in his 
prime, might he not have welded these widely 
scattered possessions into a kingdom, and so have 
achieved what Dante and Petrarch had prophesied 
for Italy ? Possibly ; and yet the elements of a 
durable kingdom were lacking. When he died, dis- 
integration set in, as it did a century later when 
Csesar Borgia, who had all but created another 
kingdom, was killed. 

The death of Visconti (September 3, 1402) gave 
a sudden impetus to Venetian policy on the main- 
land. He divided his dominion among his three 
sons, the oldest of whom was only fourteen years 
old, under the regency of his widow. This was 
the signal for covetous enemies to rise and for 
down-trodden cities to rebel. Francesco Xovello 
supposed that it would be easy for him to reach 
westward to Verona ; but when his troops appeared 
outside of Viceuza, the Vicentines shut the gates 
on them and voted to seek the protection of Venice. 
The Duchess Regent also appealed to the Republic 
to save her from Francesco, and the Republic con- 
sented on condition that Bassano, Vicenza, and 
Verona should become Venetian. This hostile 
league only whetted Francesco's angry confidence. 
" Let us make a Lion of St. Mark of this herald," 
he said, when a messenger came from Venice, and 
having slit his nose and cropped his ears, the 
tyrant sent him home without a hearing. 

In the war which followed, Francesco Avas finally 



viii THE PARTING OF THE WAYS 1G3 

driven to bay at Padua, where during many months 
he sustained, in spite of plague and famine, a 
stubborn siege. Venice repeatedly offered him fair 
terms of surrender, which he persistently refused. 
At last the Venetians took the city (November 17, 
1404) and brought him and his two sons to 
Venice, providing honorable treatment until the 
government lighted by chance on the traces of 
a great conspiracy which the Carraresi had long 
been directing. They had kept a considerable num- 
ber of Venetians, among whom were not a few no- 
bles, in their pay, awaiting a propitious moment 
for overturning the Signory. The proof of their 
guilt, so far as now appears, was undeniable, and 
sentence of death was pronounced and carried out 
at once. The father, it is said, fought desperately 
with a wooden stool when the executioners came 
to strangle him ; the sons submitted quietly. At 
news of their death the populace shouted for joy, 
and their cry, "Homo morto, vera finia" ("Man 
dead, war ended"), passed into a proverb. 

Critics hostile to Venice cite the execution of the 
Carraresi as evidence of her cruelty. In truth, 
however, the Siguory acted without haste, observ- 
ing the usual judicial forms, and decreed the death 
penalty only after the testimony plainly convicted 
them. "At the court of the V^sconti," Mr. Hazlitt 
says truly, they " would have been poisoned. At 
the court of the Scaliger they would have been 
assassinated. At Venice they were tried." And 
this, although they were guilty of the worst of 



164 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

political crimes a plot against the very existence 
of the state. 

To give sympathy to any of the Italian despots 
is to waste it. Not one of them ever suffered in 
retribution a thousandth part of the anguish he 
caused. From Ezzelino da Romano, through the 
Scaligers and the Visconti, the Carraresi and 
the Sforzas, down to the Borgias, the Medici, and the 
Farnesi, they were mostly monsters, without mercy 
and without honor. An insatiate egotism was the 
mainspring of their action. They spared neither 
Avomen in their lust nor children in their ferocity. 
They respected no oaths, they kept no compact, 
they shrank from no deceit. They regarded the 
highest positions in the Church as mere instruments, 
like poison and the dagger, to serve their ambition. 
And what makes their depravity most amazing, is 
that it was often accompanied by a mind keen 
enough to delight in highly intellectual pleasures, 
and by a taste which craved beauty, expressed 
through forms of art, whose mission it should be 
to purify and ennoble. 

The uprooting of the Carraresi left Venice mis- 
tress of their possessions, Belluno, Feltre, Bassano, 
Padua, Treviso, Vicenza, and Verona; the fertile 
plains and the outlets to the north were at last 
hers. She need have no further anxiety about 
victuals. Partly by judicious subsidies, and partly 
by a successful war, she had secured the long- 
coveted position of a land power. The cost had 
been comparatively slight, some two million due- 



vin THE PARTING OF THE WAYS 165 

ats, which the revenues of the provinces would soon 
make good. Better than conquest in battle was 
the knowledge that these cities would voluntarily 
have placed themselves under her rule : that 
promised sympathetic relations. The Veronese 
deputations did homage on July 12, 1406, in St. 
Mark's Square, where they were received with 
impressive solemnity. When they presented the 
Doge with the keys of their city, he addressed 
them in the words of Scripture, " The people that 
walked in darkness have seen a great light; upon 
them hath light sinned." In the following January, 
Padua swore fealty at a similar ceremony. 

The Signory, in framing a government for the 
new possessions, adhered to its custom of permit- 
ting as much home rule as was compatible with the 
supremacy of the Republic. The rector, the head 
of the civil administration, and the captain, who 
commanded the garrison, had their appointment 
from Venice, and naturally they brought their 
personal retinue or staff with them ; but for local 
affairs each city chose its council of notables. The 
judiciary system was made to conform as nearly as 
might be with that of Venice itself, then the best 
in Europe, at least in the important respect that it 
required ecclesiastics to be tried in civil courts, 
except when purely Church matters were involved. 
A great impetus was given to the University of 
Padua by the appropriation of 4000 ducats a year 
for the salaries of its professors. In Verona, also, 
education was promoted. "We wish to have the 



166 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

heart and love of our citizens and subjects," the 
Signory declared, and constantly acted with this 
end in view. 

Thus in the year 1405 Venice reached another 
turn in her history. Just two centuries after she 
took on herself the burden of empire in the Levant 
she became permanently a land power in Italy. 
The immediate gain was incontestable, but every 
rood of her new territory carried long-standing 
obligations, chief among which was the need of 
defense. Visconti's heirs were still too young to 
make trouble, but Emperor-elect Sigismund, who 
was also King of Bohemia and of Hungary, declared 
war in the hope of wresting Friuli and the Trevi- 
san from the Republic, and of recovering Dalmatia, 
the claims to which his rival, Ladislas, had sold to 
Venice. The war dragged on for nearly four years, 
costing much and settling nothing, until in 1413 
Sigismund consented to a truce, which lasted five 
years. When war was resumed, the Emperor's 
forces could make no stand against the Venetians, 
who both tightened their hold on Friuli, and estab- 
lished their lordship over Gorizia and confirmed 
their authority in Dalmatia. History teaches iis to 
look afar for causes. To the burning of John Huss, 
which plunged Sigismund into a religious Avar at 
home and weakened his army in Italy, we must 
attribute the Venetian success. 

Victory flushed the ambitions of a war party 
which had been coming to the front. To fight 
from a thirst for glory, to conquer for sheer love 



vm THE PARTING OF THE WAYS 1G7 

of conquest, had never been characteristic of the 
Venetians. They fought either to win a definite 
commercial or political advantage, or to repel an 
assailant. But with their rapid advance on the 
mainland there arose a party who insisted that the 
Republic should not stop at the Adige, but should 
go on and subdue Lombardy, and seize the oppor- 
tunity which destiny clearly offered her of becom- 
ing the chief power in Northern Italy. To be great, 
they urged, a state must be martial; and if it en- 
joyed a better government than its neighbors, was 
it not its duty to force its benefits on them ? Was 
there not wealth to be got, not less than glory, an 
outlet for the superfluous energy and a market 
for the teeming products of the Venetians ? Since 
Alcibiadcs most seductive of Jingoes lured the 
Athenians to their ruin in Sicily, down to the 
promoters of yesterday's war, the siren song of 
the Jingoes has been sung to the same tune. And of 
course at Venice there were peculiar conditions, as 
there always are, to make the Jingo plea seem 
plausible. To keep the provinces already won they 
must win more, until an impregnable frontier could 
be secured; and now Filippo Maria Visconti was 
waxing so strong that unless they forestalled him 
he would soon be a menace. 

The Viscontean peril quickly loomed up; for 
Filippo Maria planned to conquer Tuscany, and the 
Florentines sent an embassy to implore Venice to 
join in a league against him. The discussion of 
this project set the War Party and the Peace Party 



168 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

face to face ; but so long as Doge Tommaso Moce- 
nigo lived, the advocates of peace prevailed. 
Among the famous records of Venice are the ora- 
tion which he delivered in the Great Council and 
his deathbed exhortation shortly after. The for- 
mer is probably unauthentic, representing views 
which he was known to hold, but which were com- 
piled without his supervision ; the latter has strong 
marks of genuineness, and even though it was not 
actually written by him, it gives a striking picture 
of Venice in 1423. 

In the debate in the Great Council, the octogena- 
rian Doge argued for peace on grounds which ought 
to have convinced an assembly of merchants. He 
stated the revenues which Venice drew every week 
from the chief cities of the Duke of Milan. He 
likened the Duke's possessions to a rich garden, 
the fruits of which the Republic enjoyed without 
the cost of maintenance. The yearly receipts from 
goods sold to Milan alone amounted to 900,000 
ducats, and from the other Lombard cities came 
750,000 ducats more. " Do you not think this a 
fine and noble garden, which costs Venice nothing? " 
he asked. That same Lombardy buys further 
900,000 ducats' worth of Venetian cloth. " If you 
preserve peace, you will amass so much money that 
all the world will hold you in awe. ... If the 
Florentines give themselves to the Duke, so much 
the worse for those who interfere. Justice is with 
us. . . . Live in peace, fear nothing, and trust 
not the Florentines ! . . . Round you is naught 



vin THE PARTING OF THE WAYS * 169 

but war, fire, tribulation. Italy, France, Spain, 
Catalonia, England, Burgundy, Persia, Russia, 
Hungary, all are at war. We wage war against 
the Infidels only ; and great are the praise and 
glory Ave reap." 

The Doge singled out Francesco Foscari, leader 
of the War Party, for special rebuke. "Young 
Procurator," he said, " what happened to Troy, will 
happen to Florence, and will happen to you. By 
wars the Trojans were weakened and enslaved; by 
wars Florence is destroying herself, and we shall 
do the like if we take counsel of our young Proc- 
urator. It is to the arts of peace that our city 
owes all her prosperity ; to them is she indebted for 
her riches, the increase in her population and her 
houses. Pisa grew great by similar means and by 
good government. She plunged into war, impover- 
ished herself, and was lost. So will it be with us, if 
we listen to our young Procurator." And the Doge 
went on to assure them that, even though Visconti 
should conquer Florence, Venice would still be the 
gainer, for the renowned artisans of Florence would 
emigrate to Venice, as the silk weavers of Lucca 
had done. " Therefore, preserve peace ! " He con- 
cluded by the solemn declaration that, so long as 
he lived, he would not consent to a war with the 
Duke. 

Even more impressive is the advice which he 
gave on his deathbed to the heads of the state. In 
it he mingles political wisdom of universal applica- 
tion with counsel specially directed to the crisis 



170 , A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

which Venice had then before her. It belongs in 
spirit with the last admonitions of Pericles and 
with Washington's Farewell Address. I quote 
much of it, because there is no better way by which 
the Venice of five centuries ago can be so quickly 
conjured up to our view. 

" I wish to assemble you all here," said the dying 
Doge, " to recommend to you this Christian city, 
and to persuade you to love your neighbors, to do 
justice, and to choose peace and to preserve peace 
as I have striven to do. In my time, the public 
debt has been reduced 4,000,000, and there remain 
6,000,000. Our city at present sends out in com- 
merce, into sundry parts of the world, 10,000,000 
ducats every year with ships and galleys, and the 
profit is not less than 2,000,000 ducats a year. In 
this city there are 3000 ships of from 100 to 200 
anfore burthen, and it has 17,000 mariners, 3000 
ship carpenters, and 3000 calkers. There are 3000 
silk weavers, 16,000 cloth weavers ; the dwellings 
are reckoned at 7,000,500 ducats. The rents are 
500,000 ducats. If you continue in this way, you 
will multiply from good to better, and you will be 
masters of all the gold in Christendom ; every one 
will fear you. But as if from fire keep yourselves 
from taking what belongs to others, and from wag- 
ing unjust war, for God cannot endure these errors 
in princes. Every one knows that the war with the 
Turk has made you valorous and skillful by sea; 
you have six captains competent to command any 
great fleet; for each of them you have masters, 



vni THE PARTING OF THE WAYS 171 

crossbowmen, boatswains, crews, and oarsmen suffi- 
cient to equip a hundred galleys ; and this year you 
have so proved yourself that the world holds you 
foremost in Christendom. You have many men 
experienced in embassies and in governing cities, 
who are perfect orators. You have many doctors 
in divers sciences, and especially many legists, 
wherefore many foreigners come for judgment in 
their suits and trust themselves to your decisions. 
Your mint coins every year 1,000,000 gold ducats 
and 200,000 silver ducats, and it coins 800,000 
soldoni. Into Syria there go every year 50,000 duc- 
ats and to Terra Firnia 100,000 ; the rest remains 
at home. 

" You know that the Florentines give every year 
16,000 pieces of cloth, which we dispose of in Bar- 
bary, in Egypt, in Syria, in Cyprus, in Rhodes, in 
Romania, in. Candia, in the Morea, and in Istria; 
and every month the Florentines bring 70,000 
ducats' worth of all kinds of merchandise into this 
city, which make 840,000 ducats and more a year, 
and they purchase French and Catalan wools, 
crimson dye, worsted, silks, gold tissues, silver 
thread and jewels, to the great benefit of this city. 

" Therefore, learn to govern such a state, and take 
care to counsel it aright, and to prevent its ever 
dwindling through negligence. Very carefully must 
you observe him who shall fill my place, because 
through him the Republic may receive much good 
and much harm. Many of you are inclined to 
Messer Marino Caravello, who is a worthy man 



172 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

and merits that distinction by his worthy qualities. 
M. Francesco Bembo is a fit man, and so is M. Gia- 
como Trevisani ; M. Antonio Contarini, M. Faustin 
Michiel, M. Alban Badoer all these are wise and 
merit it. Many incline toward M. Francesco Fos- 
cari, and they do not recognize him for the proud 
and lying man he is ; there is no foundation to his 
affairs ; he is hot-headed ; he reaches out after much 
and retains little. If he be your doge, you will live 
always at war ; he who owns 10,000 ducats will not 
have a thousand; he who has two houses will not 
have one ; you will spend gold and silver, reputa- 
tion and honor ; where you are now the heads, you 
will become the vassals of the soldiery, of the men- 
at-arms and captains. I cannot refrain from letting 
you know my advice. May God allow you to choose 
the best, and may He rule and keep you in peace." 
Toinmaso Mocenigo, with whose death medieval 
Venice is commonly said to have passed away, died 
on April 4, 1423. He was the last of a series of 
doges who represented the high type of statesman- 
ship that the Eepublic had trained, men who were 
employed from youth up in all departments of the 
state, who embodied the national traditions and 
knew the character and methods of the foreign 
rulers with whom they had to deal, and who 
brought to the ducal throne the maturity and wis- 
dom of a patriarch with the force and alertness of 
full-blooded prime. Andrea Contarini (1368-82) 
piloted his country through the crucial war with 
Genoa. His successor, Michele Morosini, lived 



Vin THE PARTING OF THE WAYS 173 

only a few months, but was made of the stuff which 
only a great race breeds. During the Chioggian 
War he poured his wealth into the empty treasury, 
and, what had a more important moral effect, he 
bought houses and land in the beleaguered capital. 
When some one told him that it was madness to risk 
his money in an investment which would be wiped 
out if the Genoese conquered, he replied, " If Genoa 
conquers, I shall not care what becomes of my 
investments." Antonio Venier (1382-1400), who 
reigned next, steadied the Kepublic through her 
tempestuous contest with Gian Galeazzo Visconti 
and with the Carrara. After him followed Michele 
Steno (1400-14), who in his wild youth had 
affronted Marino Faliero, and who at near four- 
score kept a leonine temper. In a heated council 
meeting he spoke against a motion of the Avogadors. 
They interrupted, and claimed that the Doge had 
no jurisdiction in that matter. Still he spoke on. 
Then one of them boldly said, " May it please your 
Serenity to sit down arid hold your tongue," but 
the Doge would not be silenced. The Avogadors next 
threatened to fine him one thousand lire and to sum- 
mon him before the Ten. He finished his protest, 
and then, to force the issue, he demanded that they 
should impeach him. But they found it prudent 
to admit that he had not overstepped his rights. 
Before they elected his successor, however, they 
amended the ducal promission so as to make it 
lawful for two Avogadors to impeach the Doge for 
whatever they deemed an infringement of the con.- 



174 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

stitution. That successor, Tonimaso Mocenigo, 
whose final counsel to his countrymen we have 
just listened to, was in many respects the wisest 
statesman of the five. In him, too, devotion to 
Venezia wells up. The year before his death the 
Ducal Palace was burnt, and the Senate decreed 
that no one, under a penalty of one thousand ducats, 
should propose to have it rebuilt. Mocenigo paid 
the fine, made the motion to rebuild, and began the 
restoration of the Palace which stands to-day. 
Such was the fibre of the last of the medieval doges. 
On April 15, 1423, in spite of Mocenigo's warn- 
ing, Francesco Foscari was chosen to succeed him. 
It is ominous to hear for the first time that at his 
election bribery was practiced. The oligarchy had 
perfected the most elaborate system of balloting, 
but the wiles of ambitious politicians evaded it. 
The Doge was, in theory, reduced to a figurehead, 
and yet one doge after another continued to stamp 
his individuality on Venetian policy. Foscari's 
election marked the abolition of the last remnant of 
popular government ; in his promission he pledged 
himself never to summon the arrengo, and the tradi- 
tional form of announcing the election of the new 
ruler " This is your doge, an it please you " was 
changed to " This is your doge." The arrengo had 
never rejected the ruler chosen by the electors ; but 
so long as the phrase "an it please you" remained, 
they might be tempted to see how much their pleas- 
ure could accomplish. This final record of exclu- 
sion was accepted so quietly that the fact must 



vin THE PARTING OF THE WAYS 175 

have been acquiesced in long before. The Ten, 
the vital executive force of the oligarchy, had taken 
a century to shut out the people and to bind the 
Doge. 

Foscari, the " young Procurator," was fifty years 
old, seasoned after the Venetian fashion by service in 
many offices ; he had been Chief of the Forty and then 
Chief of the Ten ; he had gone on various embassies, 
was four times an Avogador, and twice Inquisitor of 
the Ten. He stood for the policy of aggrandizement, 
but he did not lack the true Venetian deliberateness, 
so that a year and a half elapsed after his election be- 
fore he consented to a league with Florence against 
Visconti. The Florentines, beaten at Zagonara 
(July 27, 1424), sent new envoys to persuade the 
Venetians to declare war, even threatening in case of 
refusal to face about and make Visconti king. The 
Senate agreed to the league, not so much because 
they feared the threat, as because they believed 
that they could now strike with great odds of vic- 
tory in their favor. They had won over to their 
side Cannagnola, the foremost condottiere of the 
age, through whose military genius in the previous 
years Visconti had regained his power, and to 
Cannagnola they intrusted the command of their 
army. They had as allies besides Florence the 
Dukes of Mantua and of Savoy. By the terms of 
the league, Venice and Florence were each to pro- 
vide eight thousand horse, and three thousand foot, 
and a flotilla to navigate the Po. 

Hostilities began in February, 1426, with the 



176 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

siege of Brescia. Carmagnola made his arrange- 
ments with skill, and then wrote to the Signory for 
permission to take the cure at the Baths of Abano. 
The special Junta of One Hundred, created to con- 
duct the war, was surprised at his unmartial request, 
but granted it. During Carmagnola's absence the 
Duke of Mantua had command. The summer wore 
away, and still the Viscontean garrison held out at 
Brescia. In October, Carmagnola discovered that 
he needed to try a second cure at the Baths, and he 
had not returned to camp when the city surrendered 
(November 10, 1426). Venice was so well satisfied 
with the outcome of the campaign that she concluded 
peace with Visconti, who was forced to consent to 
the cession of Brescia. 

Within a few weeks, however, Visconti having 
failed to keep faith, fighting broke out afresh. Car- 
magnola was amply provided with troops, but he 
would not budge from his headquarters. When the 
Hundred urged him to activity, he complained that 
he lacked forage or money for his men, or that- he 
had not a sufficient force and this, although his 
army numbered about forty thousand men. He 
was caught in ambush by Piccinino, the Duke's 
generalissimo, and when at last he gained a victory 
at Casalmaggiore, he at once released his prisoners, 
so that the enemy could put them in the field again 
without delay. He held constant communication 
with the Duke, on the plea that the latter wished 
to negotiate a durable peace, and he paid no heed 
when the Signory courteously intimated that it 



vni THE PARTING OF THE WAYS 177 

would be better for Carmagnola to do the fighting 
and to leave negotiating to them. The Venetian 
populace began openly to charge him with treachery ; 
but the long-suffering Signory tried to imagine ex- 
cuses for him, and they continued to treat him with 
the utmost deference. Perhaps piqued by the sus- 
picions which he heard, or fearful that his employers 
would themselves grow weary, he won a brilliant 
battle at Maclodio (or Macalo), near the river Oglio 
(October 11, 1427), crushing in turn Piccinino, 
Sforza, and Carlo Malatesta. This success tempo- 
rarily restored him to popularity ; but after a little 
the Venetians began to grumble because he set free 
Malatesta and eight thousand prisoners, that was 
the absurd rule of mercenary warfare, and he 
failed to make a dash on Milan, which, it appeared, 
he might have captured. So another spring came 
round, and there was not yet peace. Just as the 
campaign of 1428 opened, Carmagnola felt the need 
of more baths ; but the Senate required him. to stay 
in the field, and before long, through the interces- 
sion of the Pope, Visconti made peace, on condition 
of surrendering Bergamo. 

With Visconti, however, peace was only a ruse 
for gaining the time needed to prepare for another 
struggle ; within six months he was ready to fight 
again. Carmagnola now asked to be allowed to 
resign his command. The Venetian Senate, which 
had cause enough to be dissatisfied with him, never- 
theless thought it more prudent to keep him where 
they could watch and circumvent his intrigues than 



178 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

to let him pass into Visconti's service and turn his 
genius against the captains whom they must rely on 
in his stead. They gave him immense largesse, paid 
him personally one thousand ducats a month, and 
did not allow it to appear officially that they were 
not well contented with "his Magnificence." As 
Visconti postponed the war until 1431, Carmagnola 
enjoyed his fortune in splendid idleness. On being 
forced to take the field, he either dawdled inactive 
or let slip, by criminal negligence, the chances which 
promised success. Another campaign was wasted ; 
the cost of the war began to outrun the revenues 
allotted to it; doubts, questions, murmurs, were 
heard in the Great Council. But still the govern- 
ment thought the time to act not ripe. 

Finally, in March, 1432, the Council of Ten de- 
cided to strike. They sent a messenger to sum- 
mon Carmagnola to Venice, on the pretext that they 
wished to confer with him and the Duke of Mantua 
about the next campaign. Not a hint of their real 
purpose leaked out. Carmagnola, apparently sus- 
pecting nothing, accompanied the messenger with- 
out demur. The people along his route feted him, 
and with due honors he entered the capital. Reach- 
ing the Ducal Palace, he proceeded at once to salute 
the Doge, but in the Sala delle Quattro Porte, Leo- 
nardo Mocenigo informed him that his Serenity had 
met with a slight accident which, to his regret, would 
prevent him from receiving the Captain-General un- 
til the morrow. Carmagnola replied that, as it was 
late, he would go to his own house for the night. 



vin THE PARTING OF THE WAYS 179 

When he turned to descend the staircase, one of the 
ducal attendants said, " This way, iny lord," point- 
ing to the corridor which led to the " Orba " prison. 
" But that is not the way ! " exclaimed Carmagnola. 
" Excuse me, it is ! " replied the attendant, who, with 
some of his fellows, hustled the victim toward the 
prison. In an instant the truth flashed on him. " I 
am lost," he cried out, as they locked him into his 
cell (April 17, 1533). 

For two days he refused food. On the third day 
he was brought before the special Junta which con- 
ducted his trial. As he persisted in denying the 
charges of treachery with which they accused him, 
he was put to the brazier and confessed. During 
Holy Week and the Easter festivities the trial was 
adjourned ; then it was resumed, and for a fortnight 
much evidence and many witnesses were examined. 
No doubt of his guilt remained. On May 5, 1432, 
clad gayly in scarlet, he was led out to the Piazzetta 
and beheaded. 

The Republic's severity has been often criti- 
cised, and Carmagnola's death alleged as an in- 
dication of the mercilessness of the Ten. But 
where shall we turn for a better example of long- 
suffering ? President Lincoln was patient with 
McClellan's procrastination in the American Civil 
War ; but after a j r ear, even Lincoln lost patience. 
The Signory bore with Carmagnola eight years. 
Not having had previous experience with hired 
condottieri, they were unprepared for his lack of 
zeal, his releasing of prisoners, his intercourse with 



180 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

the enemy, his costly and disastrous inactivity, his 
abortive victories. For him and his followers, the 
game of war was a lifelong pursuit, in which a battle 
could occur only by accident ; and the captains, like 
modern counsel for litigants to a rich man's estate, 
desired nothing so little as a settlement. Battle it- 
self was almost as harmless as a French duel ; at Ma- 
clodio, for instance, where thirty thousand or more 
men were engaged, few soldiers were killed, although 
many horses perished. Venice had always fought 
in dead earnest ; and when she employed the chief 
general of his age to conduct her wars, she expected 
prompt service and an adequate result. That she 
dissimulated, is plain. "Whoever holds a tiger by 
the ears cannot let go," says the Eastern proverb. 
She could neither dismiss Carmagnola with the 
certainty that he would enter Visconti's service, 
nor tell him that when she had sufficient proof of 
his duplicity she would destroy him. She trapped 
him, as our police to-day feel justified in trapping a 
great criminal who is about to escape ; and then -she 
tried him by the fairest procedure she knew. 

After his guilt was proved, condemnation followed 
as a matter of course ; from time immemorial she 
used to punish her native commanders for mere 
defeat; she could do no less by an alien guilty of 
criminal negligence and of treachery. Grant that 
the treachery was presumptive, there is no dispute 
as to negligence and disregard of orders, crimes 
which have been awarded the severest penalty in 
every civilized military code. Had the Signory not 



vni THE PARTING OF THE WAYS 181 

wished todeal judicially with Carmagnola, they could 
have killed him privately they had no scruples 
against hiring a poisoner to rid them of Visconti; 
that they insisted on trying him, implies a respect 
for legality. Sentimentalists point to the fact that 
he was gagged on the way to the block as proof 
of the Signory's inhumanity ; but surely they must 
know that gagging was the common practice, and 
was not adopted for his special torment. Judged 
by the best standard of the fifteenth century, or 
even of recent times, it does not appear that the 
Republic fell short in her treatment of Carmagnola. 
He, on the other hand, behaved with more than 
the usual arrogance of condottieri toward their em- 
ployers ; for he arranged to receive enormous emol- 
uments, and to give little or nothing in return. To 
play this game with a commercial nation, which 
knew the value of a ducat, was indiscreet. How 
to deal with a condottiere was a new problem for 
Venice ; she solved it with such thoroughness that, 
although she employed many soldiers of fortune 
after Carmagnola, Gonzaga, Gattemelata, Colle- 
oni, Sforza, none dared to betray her. 

The war with Visconti dragged on without decisive 
results until 1441, when the Duke, having failed 
to recover Brescia, which held out with magnificent 
pluck through a three years' siege, made peace. 
One operation deserves to be recorded. Visconti's 
troops so completely hemmed in Brescia that the only 
way to relieve it was by Lake Garda. Two engi- 
neers, Blasio de Arboribus and Xiccolo Sorbolo, pro- 



182 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

posed to take a flotilla up the Adige to Roveredo, 
and thence to haul it overland across a spur of the 
Alps to the lake. The project seemed herculean, but 
the Signory voted to try it ; and as soon as possible 
six galleys and twenty-five barks were prepared. 
Two thousand oxen were hitched to them, and so 
tugged them over snow or greased stones and cor- 
duroy ways to the top of the Monte Baldo pass. 
The descent from there to the lake, a distance of 
nearly fifteen miles, was most perilous, requiring 
all the skill of the engineers to keep the ships 
from getting too much headway and plunging over 
precipices. They reached Torbole, on the lake, in 
seaworthy condition ; and although they had less 
influeiijce than had been hoped in relieving Brescia, 
the feat of transporting them remains unparalleled. 

The peace of Cavriana, which Yisconti made in 
1441, left Venice mistress of the territory she had 
conquered as far west as the Adda. It left her 
also with many burdens. Under Mocenigo she re- 
duced her debt by four million ducats ; in the first 
ten years of Foscari's reign she increased it by 
seven million ducats ; and in 1441 the total must 
have been sixteen or seventeen millions. In com- 
pensation she owned Bergamo and Brescia, two 
perpetual causes of quarrel with whoever ruled 
Milan. She had become accustomed to the idea 
that she must maintain a high position as a land 
power, Avith the inevitable political and military 
dangers which that implied. 

On August 13, 1447, Filippo Maria Yisconti's 



vin THE PARTING OF THE WAYS 183 

sudden death started up several claimants to his 
dukedom. Frederick III claimed Milan as a fief 
of the Empire; Charles of Orleans declared him- 
self the rightful heir through his mother, Valentina 
Visconti ; Alfonso of Naples had been designated 
by Filippo to succeed him ; and Francesco Sforza, 
who married Filippo's daughter, Bianca, did not 
intend to give up his claims. The Milanese them- 
selves, tired of tyrants, established a republic. 
Some of their neighboring cities sought protection 
of Venice, who welcomed them and promised to sup- 
port the Milanese if they would consent to her hav- 
ing the cities. ISTot with them, but with Sforza, was 
the real war waged. Since Carmagnola's death, he 
had been the foremost soldier in Italy for deci- 
sion and skill, and as he now had troops, he won 
back one after another of his father-in-law's lands, 
and in March, 1450, he became Duke of Milan. 
Then he set about recovering Bergamo and Brescia. 
The contest was still unsettled when a catastrophe 
occurred in the East that alarmed Christendom and 
for a while caused minor quarrels to be adjourned. 
On May 29, 1453, the Turks, led by Mohammed 
II, took Constantinople by storm, Constantine Pale- 
ologos, the Eastern Emperor, dying sword in hand. 
The event was not unexpected. Ever since 1396, 
when Bajazet routed the Hungarians and French 
at Nicopolis, it was evident that only by a coalition 
of the Western and Eastern Christians could the 
terrible Turkish invasion be driven back ; but the 
Christians were too busy fighting one another to 



184 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

combine in so noble a cause. After all, it was hard 
to rouse the imagination of the English, French, or 
Germans to the harm that would come to them if 
the master of the Bosphorus should be a Turk in- 
stead of a Greek. Religious sentiment, which had 
launched so many Crusades, had waned, and the 
Roman Church itself was rent with schism. The 
state which would suffer most was Venice : why 
should Western Europe sacrifice itself to protect 
the commerce of the Venetians ? Let them guard 
their own interests. For a while it seemed as if, 
single-handed, they could cope with the Turk. In 
1416 their fleet crushed a Turkish fleet at Gallipoli ; 
but presently the Turks seized Salonica, which be- 
longed to Venice, and overran what is now Euro- 
pean Turkey. When Venice found that the support 
she counted on failed her, she made terms with 
the enemy. Her mission in the East was trade, 
not conquest, and to secure her trade she agreed 
to pay tribute (1430). As the end of the Eastern 
Empire drew near, she sent a few ships in response 
to the Emperor's agonized appeal; and Venetians 
did their part in defending the city on the fatal 
29th of May. Their merchants in Constantinople 
suffered damages above the value of three hundred 
thousand ducats by the coming of the Turks. 
Traffic ceased for a time ; but in 1454 the Republic 
succeeded in negotiating with the Sultan a treaty 
by which, in return for more tribute, he permitted 
her to resume it. 

Although Western Europeans had cared little to 



viii THE PARTING OF THE WAYS 185 

save the crumbling Greek dynasty, they shuddered 
to learn that a Turkish Sultan reigned at Constan- 
tinople, for the tigrine zeal of the Ottomans was 
dreaded by peoples who had never faced it. The 
Turks still kept the terrible vigor of the nomadic 
barbarian, but added thereto a capacity for borrow- 
ing from the civilization they assailed means to 
make their assault more effective. They were 
charged with religious fanaticism. They reveled 
in war for the intoxication which war kindles in 
the semi-savage. They knew enough of Byzantine 
luxury, without being softened by it, to desire to 
possess it. And, like all rugged races at this stage, 
the Turks were eager to press forward, to exercise 
their exuberant energy in smiting new enemies and 
conquering new kingdoms. They were impelled by 
such a terrific momentum as had whirled the Sara- 
cens in the eighth century from. Arabia to Spain, 
and in the eleventh century had driven the Mag- 
yars like a wedge into Central Europe. To-day 
they had Starnboul ; to-morrow they would overrun 
the Morea ; after that they would swoop down on 
Italy and Rome. The Western Christians were at 
last aroused, but before we follow their plans for 
confronting the turbaned hosts, we must review 
briefly the close of Foscari's reign. 

If ever an innovator was paid in his own coin, 
that man was Francesco Foscari. He had urged 
the expansion of Venice over Terra Firma, and had 
witnessed that policy bring thirty years of almost 
continuous warfare. It brought coveted provinces, 



186 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

too, and financial stress. The funds dropped to eigh- 
teen and one half per cent. ; the treasury skipped 
payment of interest, or anticipated its taxes. But 
thirty years may see many vicissitudes. What state 
remembers its calamities more than ten years? 
And Foscari's reign saw pomps, an unquestioned 
augmenting of prestige, and the cropping out in the 
national temper of a tendency to parade its superi- 
ority. In 1437 the Kepublic asked and received 
from the Emperor the investiture of her mainland 
possessions, which he claimed as lord : a mere for- 
mality on her part, and yet it showed how far her 
entanglement in the politics of Northern Italy had 
influenced her to imitate her rivals. To secure her 
title to Kavenna, over which she had virtually ruled 
for forty years, she did homage to the Pope (1451). 
We feel that the old Venice is passing away. 
Instead of the sureness with which she had held 
aloof from foreign complications, there is now in- 
decision. The old-time statesman was a helmsman 
who knew every headland by day and the pilot 
stars by night. But the new statesmen were jug- 
glers, each trying to keep a dozen balls in the air 
so many were the interests and so swift the changes. 
The spirit of the Renaissance also, that solvent of 
medievalism, is working, and at Venice as elsewhere 
its first effect is to liberate the intellect without 
strengthening the morals. Political corruption, for 
which Foscari's election had set an ominous prec- 
edent, has grown common. In 1433 a ring, num- 
bering more than fifty patricians, bent on securing 



vni THE PARTING OF THE WAYS 187 

offices for themselves and their friends, is discovered 
and smashed. Ten years later (1444), the Doge's 
own son, Jacopo, is convicted of taking bribes. 
The Council of Ten banishes him to Nauplia, but 
he has already fled to Trieste. In 1447 the Doge 
implores that his son may be permitted to return, 
and the Ten consent, adding that the old man can- 
not properly attend to public affairs so long as his 
mind is distracted by worry for his son. Jacopo re- 
turns, but he falls under suspicion of abetting the 
assassination of one of the Chiefs of the Ten, and 
although no direct evidence is recorded against 
him, he is banished to Candia. There he intrigues 
with the Sultan to free him, is found out, and 
brought back to Venice for trial. He offers no de- 
fense, and the Ten, unwilling to execute the sen- 
tence of death which some of the court suggest, 
condemn him to perpetual banishment. In bidding 
farewell to his son, the Doge breaks down in agony, 
and this separation, which proved to be final (Ja- 
copo died in 1457), leaves the aged Foscari a wreck. 
Enfeebled with years and stricken with grief, he 
neglects his ducal duties, and the Ten compel him, 
in spite of his protest, to abdicate. As he quits the 
Palace, they would screen him from the bitterness 
of facing the populace ; but with unabated pride he 
replies : " No, no ! I will go down by the stair by 
which I came up to my dogeship." Seven days 
later he died (November 1, 1457). 

Foscari's reign of thirty-four years was the long- 
est and one of the most fateful in Venetian history. 



188 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP, vni 

The pathos of its close should not blind us to the 
unsoundness of its dominant qualities. Foscari 
himself worked vigorously for what he deemed 
the welfare of his country ; but while he belongs 
among the great doges for his ability, in his per- 
sonal character not less than in his opinions he was 
unsafe. Under him Venice learned to prefer pomp 
to virtue and brilliance to wisdom. 



CHAPTER IX 

THE CRISIS OF CAMBRAI 

THE rulers of Milan on the west, the Turks in the 
Orient, are henceforth shapers of the Republic's 
destiny. The Turks she had half-heartedly tried to 
restrain, and had failed ; the lurch to landward she 
took voluntarily. The Turks were not content to 
stay in the East. Before ever capturing Constanti- 
nople, they had pushed north to the Danube and 
west to the Adriatic, and the exploits of neither 
John Hunyadi, the Magyar hero, nor of Scander- 
beg, the Albanian, had permanently arrested them. 
Their treaty with the Venetians did not prevent 
them from attempting the conquest of the Morea. 
Alvise Loredan, Captain-General of the Republic 
there, made a desperate effort to withstand them ; 
but although in a fortnight he threw across the 
Isthmus of Corinth a wall twelve feet high and six 
miles long, with double ditches and one hundred 
and thirty-six towers, he could not defend it (1464). 

Calls for a great Crusade resulted merely in dis- 
cussions, until Pope Pius II took up the project. 
The Venetians, warned by the fact that they might 
be left to fight single-handed, held off from joining 
the expedition until they were assured that the 
189 



190 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

Duke of Burgundy and the King of Hungary would 
take part in it too. The rendezvous was Ancona. 
Thither went the Pope to await the gathering of 
the Crusaders. The Venetian contingent, under 
Doge Cristoforo Moro, arrived soon after ; but the 
next day Pius II died (1464), from grief, it was 
said, at the failure of his other allies to keep their 
word. The Venetians returned home, unwilling to 
plunge unsupported into a formal war. 

Actual fighting went on, however, almost unin- 
terruptedly, at various points in the East. The 
Turks were not only mighty in battle, but prudent 
in preparation. Their conquests had not puffed 
them up with overconfidence. They were not 
originally a maritime people ; but having in their 
conflict with the Christians found a navy indispen- 
sable, they learned, little by little, how to build and 
handle a fleet ; and now they were getting ready an 
immense armada to defeat the Venetians on their 
own element. " The Turks count on the Signory's 
not being able to arm more than forty galleys, and 
they believe that four or five of their ships are enough 
for one of ours. They have this temperament, and 
I know it by experience that they overestimate their 
enemy's strength, and provide without stint for what is 
needed. I wish our people would do likewise." So 
wrote, in 1464, Antonio Michiel, a Venetian mer- 
chant at Constantinople. But Venice, saddled with 
debt, and devoting more than half of her power to 
protect and increase her Italian dominion, could 
neither equip an adequate fleet nor concentrate her 



ix THE CRISIS OF CAMBRAI 191 

whole energy to crush the Ottomans. At Negro- 
pont (1470) the Turkish navy showed what it could 
do. Xiccolo da Canale, the Venetian admiral, set 
out to disperse it and to relieve the city, which 
was being besieged by land and water; but when 
he saw the four hundred ships flying the crescent 
ensign, he hesitated to attack them without rein- 
forcements ; and so the Turks took Negropont, and 
Cauale bore the ignominy of being beaten in an 
unfought battle. Immense was the alarm at Venice 
over this loss and with reason. 

During the succeeding nine years there was little 
respite in the strife with the Turks. Venice had 
her successes, but in the main the tide turned 
against her. The outbreak of a war in Persia 
seemed to offer a chance to smite the Sultan front 
and rear ; but the Persians too quickly succumbed. 
Appeals to brother Christians met with the usual 
no ; the Venetian envoys found them " chilled, nay 
benumbed." ]\Iore than one peace overture the 
Turks rejected. Among many examples of gallantry 
that of Antonio Loredano, who commanded Scutari 
in a desperate siege, merits never to be forgotten. 
"If you are hungry," he said to the famished citizens, 
"feed on my flesh; if you are thirsty, drink my 
blood." Inspired by such heroism, they held out 
(1473). A few years later, however, in a second 
siege, the brave city had to surrender, and the Re- 
public, by ceding other places in Albania and the 
Morea, and by paying ten thousand ducats a year 
for permission to continue her trade in Constauti- 



192 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

nople, secured a breathing spell from her disastrous 
war (1479). 

She squandered it in renewing her continental 
encroachments. She attacked the Marquis of Fer- 
rara, hoping that by annexing his land she might off- 
set her losses in the Levant. But the Pope, Sixtus 
IV, sided with the Marquis, and issued an interdict, 
which the Signory forbade to be published within 
its domains. The Pope and the Marquis then re- 
sorted to mundane means, which proved more 
effectual. Venice, unable to make front against the 
coalition which they formed with the King of Naples 
and with Milan, agreed to a peace in which Rovigo 
and the Polesine were her only compensation for a 
costly war (1484). 

Italy had reached, by this time, that state of 
hysteria which precedes utter collapse. We can no 
more discover a unifying political principle in the 
wild changes of the next quarter of a century than 
in the writhings of a jarful of leeches. Unrestrained 
selfishness impels each, and explains each momen- 
tary combination and frantic revulsion. Still, we 
can discern two elements which, contrasted with the 
general condition, appear constant. The first is 
the interference of foreign monarch s in the affairs 
of Italy ; the secondris the growing hatred of both 
foreigners and Italians for Venice. 

The endless feuds of city with city, the competi- 
tion of tyrant with tyrant, had reduced the Italians 
to the point where they called in the foreigner to 
help them against their rivals, to the certain jeop- 



ix THE CRISIS OF CAMBRAI 193 

ardy of their own political existence. And the 
foreigners came, just as, a thousand years before, 
their Goth and Vandal and Hunnish ancestors 
came, to glut themselves on the land, which, despite 
the ravages of man, was still the richest and has 
ever been the fairest. The Holy Koman Empire 
which virtually means Austria had an immemorial 
excuse for interfering. The Spaniards had estab- 
lished an intermittent control over Sicily in 1282 
and over Naples in 1442. The French held Genoa 
by a slippery tenure, and through the marriage of 
Valentina Visconti they laid claim to the Duchy of 
Milan. Italy was soon to become, therefore, not 
only the battlefield of her own warring states, but 
of France, Spain, and the Empire, the three great 
powers which were entering on their long struggle 
for the mastery of Western Europe. In Italy, 
except Venice, the Papacy was the only political 
organism of ancient date. Its double, the Koman 
Church, had gone bankrupt, through its fatal separa- 
tion of conduct from religion, making piety to con- 
sist in performing arbitrary clerical rules instead of 
in leading a good life. The elevation to the Papal 
throne of Rodriguez Borgia, Pope Alexander VI, 
who most nearly embodied absolute wickedness 
of any monster in the annals of human depravity, 
marked the moral failure of Koman Christianity ; 
and as the Church lost its hold on men's consciences, 
its temporal side, the Papacy, struggled to create 
for itself a worldly kingdom to vie with those of the 
godless rulers of Italy and the North. 



194 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

The general hostility toward Venice sprang from 
many causes. Some hated her because of her long- 
lasting prosperity. The princelings who came and 
went like leaves swept by autumn gusts hated her 
because she stood unshaken through all political 
storms. Some feared that she would pursue her 
policy of aggrandizement to despoil them, and this 
fear turned to hate. Some were sore over past de- 
feats, or hoped to win back a lost province, or to 
pay off a rankling grievance, and so they hated. 
And Venice for her part did little to propitiate her 
ill wishers. She carried herself with haughtiness 
among them, making no more effort than the mod- 
ern Britisher to dissemble the belief in her own 
superiority. Like England, in the last quarter of 
the nineteenth century, she had not a friend in the 
world, not a neighbor who would not have rejoiced 
secretly to see her humbled. In the case of Venice, 
at least, such hatred overlooked her great service to 
the common Christian welfare in attempting to hold 
back the Turk. She was selfish, but so was every 
state ; she indisputably gave her subjects the best 
government then in the world ; but this did not lessen 
her rivals' envy. As early as 1467 Duke Sforza, in 
an interview with the Venetian envoy, Gonella, 
warned him of the general malevolence toward 
the Venetians. " You are alone," he said, " and you 
have everybody against you, not only in Italy, but 
beyond the Alps. Be very sure that your enemies 
are not asleep." That a " nation of shopkeepers " 
should have risen so high, was an added insult to 



ix THE CRISIS OF CAMBRAI 195 

aristocracies in other lands which assumed that a 
patriciate was inconsistent with trade. " The King 
of Hungary resents having his affairs settled by a 
parcel of merchants," said the Sultan to a Venetian 
instructed to negotiate a peace. 

This hatred was of course a tribute to the strength 
of Venice men do not hate a weakling. And not- 
withstanding her damaging conflict with the Turk 
and her costly enterprises on Terra Firma, she ap- 
peared at the end of the fifteenth century a first- 
rate power, of unlimited resources. Her public 
debt was large, but at that time the state of a 
nation's treasury was no sure measure of a nation's 
wealth. To -contemporaries much of her warring 
in the East must have seemed but the faint echo 
of far-off brawls, like the modern British wars in 
India, in which, nevertheless, an empire was being 
lost and won. Monarchs and politicians were 
amazed by the solidity of her government, which 
they sought to equal, only to find that the secret 
lay neither in the despotism, nor craft, nor hosts of 
hirelings, nor extensive dominions : these might 
bring ascendency for a season or a lifetime, but not 
that continuous transmission of vigor which made 
Venice unique. 

The acquisition of Cyprus in 1488 seemed more 
than to compensate for losses in the Levant. It 
came about through the businesslike foresight and 
sharp practice of the Signory, and if a beautiful 
woman had not been involved in it, the details of 
the transaction would hardly have appealed to 



196 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

artists and romancers. Cyprus belonged to the 
Lusignan family, of whom the last king, Giacomo, 
married Caterina Cornaro, of old Venetian noble 
stock, who was officially adopted as "the daughter 
of the Republic" (1471). Within two years Gia- 
como died, poisoned, the hostile whispered, by 
the Signory's agents, and the son whom Caterina 
bore after his death lived only a short time. Again 
the hostile hinted of poison. Rebels invaded the 
palace and slew the Queen's doctor and lackey be- 
fore her eyes, and despatched her uncle and her 
cousin in their quarters near by. Venice interfered 
to preserve order, and to keep back other claimants 
to Cyprus. This tutelage lasted fifteen years ; but 
it became too precarious. There was the risk that 
Caterina, beautiful and still young, might marry. 
The Signory urged her to abdicate, but she resisted 
as long as she could. When she realized that they 
intended to remove her even without her consent, 
she yielded, and gave up to Venice her island king- 
dom. The Republic, having gained its end, treated 
her with the utmost honor, granting her a large 
annuity, a palace in Venice, and the town and sub- 
urbs of Asolo. Her coming was a pageant, and so 
was her departure. At her little court she wel- 
comed the best intellects of her time. She died in 
1510, at the age of fifty-six, proudly signing herself 
to the last, " Queen of Cyprus, Jerusalem, and Ar- 
menia, Lady of Asolo." The memory of her beauty 
and grace, touched but not impaired by misfortune, 
still glows after these many centuries. As a politi- 



ix THE CRISIS OF CAMBRAI 197 

cal transaction, the winning of Cyprus by such 
means was far more profitable thaii conquest by 
war had been ; the immorality of it, if the Signory 
were guilty of the crimes imputed, needs no com- 
ment. The new possession made Venice opulent, 
and therefore more enviable, in the eyes of her 
rivals. 

Caterina Cornaro resigned her throne in 1488. 
The year before there occurred the first event in a 
fateful series which foreboded to Venice something 
of far deeper concern than the loss or gain of Cyprus. 
Bias discovered the Cape of Good Hope in 1487, and 
stimulated that passion for navigation which ten 
years later brought Vasco da Gama's caravel into 
the port of Calicut. Meanwhile, Columbus, Cabot, 
and Vespucci, seeking India, had found the New 
World by sailing westward. The meaning of these 
discoveries was soon understood by a few of the 
Venetians, although nobody could then foresee that 
it was the revelation of America, and not the easier 
access to India, which would revolutionize history. 
On Venice the passage round the Cape of Good 
Hope wrought irremediable injury. It created new 
channels for commerce, new political and social 
conditions, which the Venetians could not command. 
Speaking very broadly, her fate was like that of a 
great city which flourishes a thousand years on the 
banks of a mighty river, until an earthquake comes 
and shatters the country, turning the river into 
another valley, and leaving the city to perish very 
slowly. The discovery of the waterway to India 



198 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

turned the stream of Oriental commerce irrevocably 
away from Venice. 

At first she felt the change chiefly as a menace. 
With astonishing enterprise, the Portuguese organ- 
ized their trading fleets, and made Lisbon the mart 
for the spices, the jeAvels, the rich cloths, and the cot- 
tons of India. In spite of the length and danger 
of the voyage, it cost far less to bring these prod- 
ucts by sea than to carry them overland to the sea- 
board of Egypt or Syria, and thence to ship them 
to Venice. Losses from robbers and toll-exacting 
rulers exceeded many times the losses by ship- 
wreck ; and Lisbon, as the distributing point for 
the trading ports of Western Europe, had a great 
advantage in distance over Venice. With safety, 
cheapness, and distance in their favor, the Portu- 
guese must inevitably outstrip the Venetians, who 
would not try the Cape route themselves, because 
they did not control the Strait of Gibraltar. For 
fear of irritating the Soldan of Egypt, with whom 
they had a treaty for the passage of their Oriental 
caravans through his country, they did not, like 
their rivals, establish a factory at Lisbon. Wisely 
managed, enough remained to them in the Levantine 
trade to assure prosperity : but the preeminence of 
Venice had departed; she might be henceforth the 
chief commercial nation of the Adriatic and the 
^Egean, and of the neighboring lands, but she could 
never again be paramount in the commerce of the 
world. As her geographical isolation had deter- 
mined her rise to empire, so geographical considera- 



ix THE CRISIS OF CAMBRAI 199 

tions foredoomed her to decay. The new conditions 
came through no fault of hers, and could no more 
be predicted than we can to-day predict the revolu- 
tions which would occur if man should succeed in 
opening commercial relations with the dwellers on 
Mars. 

For a long time, however, the ultimate bearing of 
the changed conditions lay in the background, while 
political quarrels of comparatively slight signifi- 
cance loomed very large in front. Wars, which al- 
ways distort the vision, came to confuse the main 
issue. In 1494 Lodovico Sforza invited Charles 
VIII of France to descend into Italy and secure 
to him the Duchy of Milan. Charles came, and 
marched to Naples, where he subdued King Alfonso, 
Sforza's chief foe. With greed whetted by this con- 
quest, Charles showed signs of intending to turn 
on his friend Sforza and of appropriating Milan. 
Sforza in desperation appealed to Emperor Maxi- 
milian, to Spain, and to Venice, to form a league 
against their common enemy. If Charles remained 
master of both Naples and Milan, he urged, who 
could prevent him from conquering the Peninsula ? 
The allies intercepted the French at Fornovo, on 
their way south, put to flight their army, and ought 
to have captured Charles himself, if they had not 
been too thirsty for booty (July 6, 1495). Rid of 
the French invader, the Italians looked suspiciously 
on the Emperor : but Maximilian was just then 
too poor to put a large army in the field. In 1498 
Charles VIII died. His successor, Louis XII, 



200 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

inherited claims to both Naples and Milan and 
prepared to oust Sforza from his duchy. This time 
Venice cast her lot with the French. Sforza craftily 
stirred up the Turks to assail the Venetians in the 
rear. At Sapienza, spot of ill omen, the Turkish 
fleet encountered the Venetians under Antonio 
Grimani, whose grip slackened at the critical mo- 
ment, and brought on a total defeat (August 25, 
1502). Stripped of her navy, Venice was forced to 
sue for peace ; which was not granted before the 
Venetians had seen from their belfries the smoke of 
the towns which the Turkish ravagers were burning 
in Friuli. To her envoy, as he took his leave, the 
Grand Vizier said, with insolence which had to be 
swallowed, " Venice has wedded the sea up to the 
present ; in future, it will be our turn, for we have 
more at stake on the sea than you have." 

To call the Turk in to help Christian against 
Christian became the practice of Catholics and 
Protestants alike. At the end of the nineteenth 
century it was the English who, for equally selfish 
ends, kept imburied the carcass of the Turkish 
Empire to pollute the air of Southeastern Europe. 

Venice made terms with the Sultan not a moment 
too soon, since there was now weaving round her a 
danger more terrible than any she had known since 
the Chioggian War : her many haters and enviers 
were on the point of forming a coalition against her. 
Her safety had once lain in holding aloof, or in 
playing one of her rivals against another. She 
could do neither now ; and although she had minus- 



ix THE CRISIS OF CAMBRAI 201 

takable warning that the world was indeed against 
her, she failed to act with even common discretion. 
Pope Alexander VI died August 8, 1503 ; within 
a month, the Republic had taken steps to annex 
some of the Papal cities of Romagna and the 
Marches. " Work with all celerity, circumspection, 
and secrecy," was her order to her agents ; and by 
November, when Julius II had succeeded to the 
Holy See, after the three weeks' pontificate of Pius 
III, the men of St. Mark were in control of Faenza, 
Cesena, Urbino (which Duke Guidobaldo himself 
placed under the protection of Venice), and other 
towns. 

Julius II, violent, able, and pugnacious, should 
have been monarch of one of the great kingdoms, 
and not the Vicar of Jesus Christ; the Roman 
princedom offered too narrow a field for his worldly 
ambition. He proposed to aggrandize the States of 
the Church and to drive the " barbarians " the 
French, the Spaniards, and the Germans out of 
Italy. These two aims might have been harmo- 
nized had not Julius been so eager to strengthen the 
Papacy first, that he lost his chance of ever ousting 
the barbarians. He set his heart on winning back 
the fiefs which had been lost under his predeces- 
sors, and with this in view he called on the Vene- 
tians to make restitution. The Signory protested 
that they had come by their new lands fairly, that 
they would willingly pay the Pope taxes on them, 
but that they would never give them up, " if they 
had to spend down to the very foundations of their 



202 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

houses." Julius smothered his wrath, while he cast 
about for means to strike effectively. 

In the autumn of 1504 Louis XII of France and 
the Emperor Maximilian made a secret treaty at 
Blois, their principal object being to attack A T enice 
and divide between them her mainland provinces. 
Julius was a partner in this enterprise. Venice got 
wind of the plot and adopted a conciliatory policy. 
She even restored some of the Papal territory, so 
that Julius spoke of her people as " good and very 
dear children of the Apostolic See." The three 
years ensuing witnessed an uninterrupted cam- 
paign of craft. The conspirators, whose only com- 
mon bond was hatred of the Republic, came several 
times to the verge of a quarrel among themselves; 
whilst Venice endeavored to ingratiate herself with 
now one and now another. Such a struggle has 
probably never been seen since, because Europe has 
never had so many masters of craft pitted against 
each other at one time. Ferdinand of Spain, 
Louis XII of France, Maximilian of Germany, and 
Julius II were equals in cunning and in unscrupu- 
lousness ; and the Venetian Signory, certainly not 
a novice in guile, met in them more than a match. 
After the conspirators had exploited various schemes 
against each other, they fell back on their plot 
against Venice. 

At Cambrai their envoys met and formed that 
league Avhich stands as the crown of infamy in 
an age when political infamy was the common rule. 
The manifesto of Maximilian (January 6, 1509) an- 



ix THE CRISIS OF CAMBRAI 203 

nounced that the allies would put an end to " the 
losses, the insults, the rapine, the injuries, of which 
Venice was guilty." " We have found it not only 
useful and honorable," the Emperor concluded, 
" but even necessary to summon all to a just ven- 
geance, to extinguish, as if it were a general con- 
flagration, the insatiable cupidity of the Venetians, 
and their thirst for dominion." And as proof of 
disinterestedness, each ally stipulated- what his 
share of the Venetian spoils should be : the Pope 
bespoke Rimini, Ravenna, Faenza; the Emperor, 
Istria, Friuli, the Trevisan, and all westward to 
Verona; Louis XII, Bergamo, Brescia, and the 
former dependencies of the Duchy of Milan ; the 
King of Spain, Otranto, Brindisi, and other towns in 
South Italy which he had pledged to Venice. They 
agreed that if they could persuade the King of 
Hungary to join, he should receive Dalmatia. They 
tempted the Duke of Savoy with the offer of 
Cyprus, and the Marquis of Ferrara and the Duke 
of Mantua with promises of independence. There 
was unlimited plunder, and everybody might share 
it by turning brigand, brigandage being a most 
respectable profession, practiced by the Vicar of 
Jesus Christ, and by kings who called themselves 
" the .most Christian " and " the Catholic." 

Diplomacy having failed, Venice prepared reso- 
lutely for war. Whatever her sins might be, she 
was never a coward. Her rich and her poor rallied 
to her defense. Doge Leonardo Loredano, having 
given the customary ducal banquet on the feast of 



204 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

St. Mark, sent his plate to the mint. Two generals, 
D'Alviano and Pitigliauo, were set in command of 
the army, which was quickly recruited to block the 
march of the French, but at Agnadello they were 
overwhelmed (May 14, 1509). The French pressed 
on, conquering town after town. From the north 
Maximilian's troops poured into Friuli. From the 
south came the Pope's levies. Julius II, weaker 
than his allies in temporal soldiers, resorted to 
ecclesiastical weapons, and launched an interdict 
which the Signory prevented from being published 
in Venice. To retaliate, the Signory issued an ap- 
peal to a Church council, and through the adroitness 
of their messengers their manifesto was actually 
posted on the doors of St. Peter's, at Rome. But this 
did not heal the wound which the Pope's thrust had 
made. By June, 1509, the Papal forces had re- 
covered most of the places which Julius coveted, 
and the French had advanced east of Brescia. The 
Republic being unable to defend her cities, there 
is a legend that she released them from their, alle- 
giance, many of them surrendered at discretion 
to the invaders. Treviso, however, held out, and 
Padua endured bravely a siege by Maximilian's 
army, which had to retire baffled and discredited. 

Never was a gallant nation nearer destruction 
than Venice in the summer and autumn of 1509. 
With the " whole world against her," her armies 
beaten, her provinces wrenched away, she seemed 
more than once about to founder in the great gulf. 
But she paused neither in her efforts to improvise 



ix THE CRISIS OF CAMBRAI 205 

armies nor in her diplomatic endeavors. To fol- 
low in detail the intrigues which each party to the 
Avar carried on, is to sound the depths of political 
depravity and to gain a knowledge of the state- 
craft which Machiavelli teaches in TJie Prince. If 
Venice could have defended herself for only a few 
months, she might have counted on her enemies 
quarreling among themselves ; but her early military 
disaster left her too soon at their mercy. In her 
desperation, she did not scruple to implore the Turk 
to come to her rescue an appeal which bore no 
fruit, but which reveals the complete breakdown of 
international morals. That breakdown was the 
last stage in the decay of Koman Christianity. 
When a Pope, in order to regain worldly posses- 
sions, stooped to partnership with brigands, and did 
not blush to employ spiritual means to gain political 
ends, it was only natural that his victim, who pro- 
fessed reverence for him as head of her Church, 
should call in an Infidel, a Mohammedan, whose 
dearest wish was to annihilate all Christians. Con- 
tradictions so monstrous imply chaos, social, moral, 
religious chaos, the dissolution of the elementary 
ties which bind man to man and state to state. 

Although Julius had been the most violent of 
her assailants, he was the first to relent. In Febru- 
ary, 1510, having recovered his temporal possessions 
and forced Venice to renounce the ecclesiastical in- 
dependence which she had boasted for a thousand 
years, he made peace with her. The French, whom 
he had urged to cross the Alps the year before, he 



206 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

now hoped to drive back again, by forming a new 
coalition, " The Holy League," which he per- 
suaded Spain and Venice to join. The brunt of 
the devastation fell 011 Venice. Vicenza had al- 
ready suffered from the atrocities of the French; 
six thousand fugitives, consisting chiefly of women 
and children, sought refuge in an old quarry, and 
the French started a fire at its mouth, suffocating 
them all. Brescia, taken after a gallant siege, was 
given over to indescribable horrors. But neither 
the Spanish general, Cardona, nor the Venetian 
captains could make head against the great talents 
of Gaston de Foix. Fortunately for the League, he 
was killed in the battle of Ravenna (April 11, 1512), 
and without his guidance, the French campaign 
collapsed. The logical moment for a general peace 
had come, but, in spite of the withdrawal of the 
French from the valley of the Po, there was no 
peace : the Emperor Maximilian, who had joined 
the Holy League, insisted on keeping the prisoners 
he had captured ; the Spaniards had had their am- 
bition fired to succeed the French in the Duchy of 
Milan ; the Pope, clutching his own conquests, was 
hardly the best arbiter to persuade his allies to re- 
linquish theirs. 

Julius II died February 21, 1513, and a month 
later Venice signed at Blois a treaty with France. 
Turning back to her old policy, the Republic allied 
herself with the power which she deemed the 
weakest, and so the least likely to harm her. She 
soon learned that neutrality would have been a 



ix THE CRISIS OF CAMBRAI 207 

better choice : for the new army which Louis XII 
sent into Italy was beaten at Novara (June 6, 1513) ; 
and the Venetian mercenaries, overmatched and left 
without allies, were brushed aside by Cardona, who 
actually planted his cannon at Malghera and fired 
on Venice herself. The Lagoon proved so sure a 
defense, that she could watch without anxiety the 
taunting shots fall short ; but her pride was hum- 
bled at seeing the Spaniards ravage the mainland, 
which she had no means to protect. In 1515 
Francis I, who had succeeded Louis XII as king 
of France, marched into Italy and, by the victory 
of Marignano (September 14, 1515), won back the 
Milanese. The next year peace was signed at 
Brussels between Francis and Charles, the new 
king of Spain; then the Venetians, by buying a 
five years' truce of Emperor Maximilian, who was 
ahvays more greedy of money than of military glory, 
at last could breathe. 

The Seven Years' War had all but ruined the 
Republic. It unmasked the fatal weakness of her 
position on Terra Firma. It taught her that a sea- 
faring nation, which aspired to rank as a land power 
also, and relied on mercenaries for its defense, was 
throwing away the secret of its strength. It was 
but a barren satisfaction to reflect that it required 
the mightiest coalition which Western Europe had 
seen since Charlemagne's time to drag her down 
from the zenith. 

The League of Cambrai revealed the absolute 
corruption of the Renaissance political methods and 



208 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

ideals. The kings of the great powers, and the 
Eoraan Pontiff himself, had not risen above the 
level of the unspeakable petty despots of the pre- 
ceding century. They abased Venice, but when, as 
the result of his league against her, Italy was left 
permanently the prey of the Spaniards and the 
French, how hollow sounded Julius the Second's 
cry, " Out with the barbarians ! '' In first crippling 
Venice, Julius wasted the only Italian state strong 
enough to lead a coalition which might possibly 
have kept the barbarians from entering the Penin- 
sula. To let in a flood by deliberately breaking a 
dam, and then to seize a broom to try to sweep it 
out, describes the procedure, and measures the 
political sagacity, of Julius II. 

Amid the tangle of duplicity, cruelty, and greed, 
one noble thread appears : the cities and towns of 
the mainland resumed voluntarily their allegiance 
to Venice, as fast -as they were free to choose. 
That act is the highest praise of her government. 
The boundaries of the Eepublic reached, as of old, 
to the Adda on the west, but the sense of security 
had gone. Francis and Charles were contending 
for the mastery of the Continent, and as Italy was 
both the scene and the object of much of their 
fighting, Venice would not remain neutral. Al- 
though Francis lost at the battle of Pavia (1525), 
she joined him in the League of Cognac (1526), 
which brought her no equivalent for the million 
and a half ducats it cost her. 

An inscrutable Providence had cogged the dice 



209 

in favor of Spain. The year 1492 saw the Spanish 
conquest of the Moors, the discovery of the New 
"World by an expedition which planted there the 
banner of Spain, and the election of the Span- 
iard, Borgia, to the Papal throne. Within the next 
thirty years, Spain rose, by cunning, or chance, or 
war, to the primacy of Christendom, which she held 
until her Armada was shattered by the admirals 
of Elizabeth (1588). The primacy of Spain meant 
a century of blight : it meant the rank flowering of 
the Inquisition and the organizing of Jesuitry by 
Spaniards, the Spanish attempt to crush out forever 
the ideals of liberty, the perpetration by Spanish 
generals and rulers of uncounted atrocities in 
Europe and America, the establishment by Span- 
iards in America of the most corrupt and cruel 
of modern colonial systems, and the degradation of 
the Spaniards themselves into merciless fanatics, 
court puppets, and cloddish peasants. The fright- 
ful potency of immense wealth to brutalize was 
never shown more clearly than in the case of the 
Spanish grandees, on whom were showered the riches 
of Mexico and Peru, of the East Indies and the 
West. Can it be said of any other nation which has 
held the ascendant that it added nothing in science, 
in invention, in manners, in politics, in philosophy, 
or in religion, to human progress ? What the 
Turk was among Asiatics, such was the Spaniard 
among Europeans. Ferdinand, Charles, Philip, 
these are the monarchs of Imperial Spain ; Torque- 
mada, Loyola, Alba, these are the incarnation of 



210 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

the Spanish character at prime. In return for the 
check she dealt to human progress, and for the 
incomputable sum of injustice, ignorance, misery, 
and pain charged against her, Spain has given the 
world one humorist, one dramatist, and one painter 
the products of her decline. 

It was this power, Spain, which the long wars 
set in motion by the League of Cambrai made 
supreme in Italy. The Peace of Bologna, between 
Charles V and Francis I, restored a Sforza to the 
Duchy of Milan, under the pretense of maintaining 
a theoretical balance of power between the contend- 
ing interests. A line of bastard Medici was en- 
throned in Florence. The Spanish Kingdom of 
the Two Sicilies dominated the south. The family 
of Farnese were soon to control the Holy See 
Paul III was elected in 1534 and to plant duchies 
in Parma and Piacenza. Except at Venice, no inde- 
pendent Italian government was left standing in 
Italy. The barbarians possessed the Peninsula 
and reduced it to a condition of servitude from 
which it was not wholly redeemed until 1870. 

We often say of a man who survives a terrible 
ordeal, " He entered upon it young, and he came 
out of it old." So it was with Venice after the 
League of Cambrai. Externally, her territory was 
almost unchanged ; but potentially, she had sunk 
from first to second rank. Had this been due 
merely to an unsuccessful war, she might have re- 
covered her position, as France did ; but it was due 
to the fact that there had risen into being a new 



ix THE CRISIS OF CAMERA! 211 

world-order in which no state, however prosperous, 
could rule Western Europe from the head of the 
Adriatic. The age of the great monarchies had 
come. The stream of commerce, which had been 
the lifeblood of Venice, flowed now through other 
seas. Her geographical position, which in the 
earlier world-order was the cause of her unique 
growth, doomed her to a leisurely decline. The dis- 
covery of America and of the Cape passage to India 
warned her that a new commercial era was dawn- 
ing over Western Europe. For a thousand years 
she had successfully steered clear of dangerous ri- 
vals on the mainland ; neither Pope nor Emperor nor 
ephemeral tyrant could do her permanent harm ; 
but henceforth she had as neighbors the satellites 
of Spain, a power that she could not dislodge. 



CHAPTER X 
VENETIAN CIVILIZATION : INSTITUTIONS 

THE prime of Venice runs from the fourteenth 
century through the sixteenth. By 1300 her gov- 
ernment had taken its characteristic form ; her 
imperial relations, her commercial and colonial 
methods, were established, her social habits well 
defined. Before 1600 her empire had waned, her 
commerce shrunk, and she was living on her past 
and on her capital. We may well pause to examine 
briefly, but summarily, into her civilization. The 
questions which we put at last to every nation are : 
What sort of existence did you offer to your chil- 
dren ? What was your contribution to human 
progress? Venice can give worthy replies to 
these questions ; for she attained to a high degree 
of civilization. By her enterprise and tolerance 
she helped the human race forward ; she bestowed 
on her children and her wards a larger measure of 
content than they could have enjoyed with any of 
her contemporaries ; and through her art she rose 
into the noble fellowship of Athens, Florence, and 
the masters of Gothic. 

Let us look first at her government, and gather 
into a single survey the facts which have come 
212 



CHAP, x VENETIAN CIVILIZATION 213 

piecemeal in our narration. Venice can best be 
compared to a great ship which requires the most 
skillful navigators. To exist at all, and secure that 
perfect adjustment to her physical conditions which 
her incredible location called for, she had to rely 
on expert direction ; so she never rested until she 
educated experts, and her history is their best 
eulogy. 

If we represent her government as a pyramid, the 
Great Council is the base and the Doge the apex. 
Directly or indirectly, every officer derived his 
authority from the Great Council, which, elected 
by popular vote in the first instance, became there- 
after self-perpetuating. In 1297 it limited its 
membership to the aristocracy, whose male adults 
numbered from one to two per cent, of the popula- 
tion. 1 The Council met every Sunday. Any noble 
was eligible to it who was over twenty-five years of 
age and had had his legitimacy certified. The 
chief business was appointing and electing, but in 
time of crisis its vote decided public policy. 

More ancient than the Great Council was the 
Senate, which grew out of the Doge's custom of in- 
viting prominent citizens to advise him in an emer- 
gency. These invited persons, or Pregadi, came to 
have a regular existence. They were elected by 
the Great Council (1229), and numbered originally 

iln 1368 the heads of the noble houses numbered two hundred 
and four ; but as no fewer than eighteen of the Contarini sat in 
the Great Council at one time, it is safe to reckon the male 
patricians at from three thousand to four thousand. 



214 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

sixty; subsequently this number was doubled by 
the addition of a Junta, which the Senators them- 
selves chose. Senators held office for a year, and 
not more than three members of any family could 
serve simultaneously in the first sixty, or two in the 
Junta. There sat ordinarily with the Senate the 
Doge and his Councilors, the Ten, the Avogadors, 
and the Procurators of St. Mark about one hun- 
dred and sixty in all, but on various occasions the 
number rose to nearly three hundred, by the inclu- 
sion of special commissions. This body discussed the 
vital concerns of the state, and controlled particu- 
larly its foreign policy, navigation, and commerce. 

Above the Senate sat the College, which com- 
prised the sixteen Sages, and corresponded to a 
modern ministry. When it met with the Doge and 
his Council and the three Heads of the Forty, it 
was called the Full College and received communi- 
cations or envoys from foreign states, issued com- 
missions, and attended to the general business of 
the Eepublic. 

At the apex of the pyramid shone the Doge, who 
during the later centuries was almost a figurehead. 
In the days of the Candiani he had been a real 
executive, dispenser of justice, law-maker, and coni- 
mander-in-chief on sea and land. One by one 
these powers had been shorn from him. His 
countrymen, jealous of their liberty, hemmed him 
in with restrictions, and made him the symbol of 
the Kepublic. He presided over the Great Council, 
the Signory, the College, and the Ten, but his f uuc- 



x VENETIAN CIVILIZATION 215 

tion was that of a chairman or moderator rather 
than that of an executive. Six Ducal Councilors, 
who with him formed the Signory, attended him 
from his rising until he went to bed, and except in 
the presence of four of them, he could neither open 
nor despatch letters, grant audiences, or discharge 
public business. He was expected to live splen- 
didly, and to this end had a salary of fifteen thou- 
sand ducats, which usually fell far short of his 
private income. He was strictly forbidden to con- 
fer offices on members of his family, or to put them 
in the way of enriching themselves through govern- 
ment favors. As a final precaution, at his death a 
special commission investigated his public acts, with 
power to attaint his heirs, if it found any traces of 
irregularity. That it was not lenient, we infer from 
its condemning the heirs of Pietro Loredano, who 
died in 1567, to pay a fine of fifteen thousand ducats, 
because he had not lived "as magnificently as so high 
an office required." But although the Doge could 
neither initiate nor veto, nothing could deprive him 
of that personal influence which, be it mighty 
or ineaching, accompanies every human creature : 
and as the doges were for the most part men of 
the widest experience in public affairs, their opin- 
ion, even in the later period of gilded ceremonial, 
carried great weight ; we shall see how, before the 
compelling personality of Francesco Morosini, the 
rigid prescriptions became elastic. 

The Great Council, the Senate, and the Full Col- 
lege constituted in a large way the government, but 



216 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

the Sages and the Ten actually managed its busi- 
ness. The six Great Sages (Savii Grandi) looked 
after the general administration of the capital, the 
five Sages for Terra Firma (Savii di Terra Firma) 
attended to the affairs of the mainland, and the five 
Sages for the Sea (Savii da Mar, or degli ordiiii) 
nominally superintended naval and maritime affairs, 
but were really of little importance. Each of these 
committees prepared all business within its jurisdic- 
tion for the consideration of the Full College. The 
three groups of Sages really performed the functions 
of modern ministries of home affairs, colonies, and 
admiralty and commerce ; but instead of having a 
permanent secretary at the head of each depart- 
ment, the Sages held in rotation the headship for 
one day. 

At the heart of the government worked the Coun- 
cil of Ten. It came into existence after the 
conspiracy of Bajamonte Tiepolo as a temporary 
Committee of Public Safety, and was declared per- 
manent in 1335. The Ten were the Ministry of 
Police of Venice. They guarded against rebels at 
home and enemies from abroad, they kept strict 
order, they watched over public decency and morals. 
Political activity being limited to the patricians, 
the Ten jealously suppressed it among the other 
classes. Treason and rebellion were so common in 
Italy, that the extreme precautions taken by the 
Decemvirs Avas certainly justified, and to them be- 
longs the credit of preserving Venice from any 
serious danger during nearly five hundred years. 



x VENETIAN CIVILIZATION 217 

Being elected for a year, they themselves chose 
three of their number as Heads (Capi) who served 
alternately one month each, and were forbidden to 
go into the city, or to hold intercourse with citizens 
during their term of office. The Ten, although a 
patrician body, stood so often between the common- 
ers and the patricians, that they were respected by 
the lower classes. But as they worked secretly, 
employed spies (detectives we should now call them), 
and punished swiftly, they had a terrible reputation, 
which it was their policy not to deny. They re- 
sorted to torture when they deemed it necessary, 
and they executed promptly after conviction. Like 
all rnedievals, they probably did not lean to the 
side of mercy ; but, as Mr. Horatio Brown remarks, 
an examination of their archives will not lead to the 
conclusion that they were " either cruel or sangui- 
nary." The common belief that the Ten blindly 
acted upon anonymous accusations, slipped into the 
Lion's Mouth, was unfounded, since they paid no 
attention to such a charge unless five sixths of the 
Council approved. It is to be remembered that the 
Doge and his six Councilors always had a place in 
the sessions of the Ten, which were usually at- 
tended also by an Avogador to uphold the law. 

That the Ten should encroach beyond the politi- 
cal field, and come to be looked upon as the real 
executive, was inevitable. All sorts of petitioners 
appealed to them. They took cognizance of judi- 
cial as well as of political business, and it was 
always easy to assume that any matter concerned 



218 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

public safety enough to warrant their meddling with 
it. Early in their career they forced Foscari to 
abdicate ; and in the sixteenth century they waged 
a long contest for supremacy with the Great Council, 
which in the end declared their usurpation illegal 
(1582). Still, they did not let the practical control 
of affairs pass out of their hands. Perhaps because 
they found their body, with the Ducal Council 
added, too unwieldy for quick work, they formed 
the subcommittee of the Three Inquisitors of State, 
who could act on the instant. The Three also knew 
the value of inspiring terror, and did nothing to 
dispel the popular impression that to be summoned 
before them was equivalent to a conviction; al- 
though their activity, gauged by their prosecutions, 
was not excessive. 1 

Whether the most intimate facts concerning the 
Ten will ever be known, may well be doubted. 
Much may be done by a committee which it neither 
records in the minutes of its proceedings nor stores 
away in its archives. Secrecy favors abuses ; es- 
pionage, suspicion, terror, raise a presumption 
against those who employ them. Nevertheless, 
two points must be given full weight in judging the 
Ten: first, it is incredible that a dominant class 
should choose such a body from its own members, 
and tolerate it for five hundred years, if they 
believed its rule to be unjust, cruel, and corrupt. 
Secondly, as the Decemvirs served only a year 

1 From 1573 to 1775 they prosecuted 1273 suits, an average of 
about six a year. 



x VENETIAN CIVILIZATION 219 

and could not be immediately reflected, there were 
always two or three hundred patricians alive who 
had been members of the Ten, conversant with its 
secrets and responsible for its methods. Again it 
is incredible that so large a number of persons 
should habitually connive at a system which they 
knew to be unjust, cruel, and corrupt. 

"With no fewer than eleven different courts of the 
first instance, Venice had a highly specialized judi- 
ciary. The Criminal Forty and the Civil Forty, 
composed of patricians, acted as courts of appeal 
in criminal and civil cases ; and when the need arose, 
a third bench, the Kew Civil Forty, was created to 
hear appeals of litigants from Terra Firma. An Avo- 
yador del Commune, or Advocate of the Commune, 
an officer who resembled the Tribunes of Kepublican 
Rome, sat with the Forty to guard against infringe- 
ments of the common laws. Trial by jury did not 
exist, but the judge examined witnesses carefully, 
and the accused might engage counsel. Prosecu- 
tors were warned not to cross-question in a vexa- 
tious spirit. A stern procedure governed causes 
which went before the Council of Ten, which 
tried patricians and had jurisdiction over political 
and heinous crimes and bestial vices. Two Decem- 
virs, one Ducal Councilor, and an Avogador con- 
ducted the examination of the accused in a dark 
cell to hasten a confession. If he proved stubborn, 
he was put to the torture ; but the law grimly in- 
sisted that this must not be pushed "beyond the 
normal limit." Challenges, duels, wagers of battle, 



220 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

and similar feudal practices had no part in Venice ; 
but the assumption, common to the Latin peoples, 
prevailed, that the accused was guilty unless he 
could prove himself innocent. 

Punishment bore the medieval stamp, the death 
penalty being very common. Petty thieves were 
flogged ; those who stole forty lire or more might be 
put to death ; forgers and false coiners lost a hand ; 
violent burglars, ravishers, and adulterers lost both 
a hand and an eye. Capital punishment had de- 
grees of painf ulness and ignominy ; beheading or 
hanging was regarded as the quickest, strangling 
as the least ignominious, starving as the cruelest. 
Ordinary criminals were drowned, political offenders 
hanged. 1 The prisons, whether the Pozzi in the 
cellar of the Ducal Palace or the Piombi under 
the roof of the adjacent building, were bad enough, 
but no worse than those in every European city. 
Common criminals were confined in less noisome 
places, and as early as 1441 the sexes were sepa- 
rated in jails and prisons. The Doge was required 

1 For the sake of comparison, I cite from Holinshed the pun- 
ishments which obtained in England about 1580, that is, near 
the middle of Elizabeth's reign. For high treason, the victim 
was hanged till he was half dead, then taken down and quar- 
tered alive; for murder, hanging in chains, the body being left 
till the bones consumed to nothing; burning alive for a woman 
who poisoned her husband ; boiling to death, in water or lead, 
for other poisoners; hanging or burning for witches; hanging 
or guillotining (at Halifax) for common thieves; pressing to 
death by great weights for felons "who stand mute at their 
arraignment"; branding, cutting off ears or hands, whipping, 
and similar milder methods for petty offenders. 



x VENETIAN CIVILIZATION 221 

to see that prisoners were brought to trial within 
a month. The expeditiousness of Venetian justice 
contrasts favorably with the law's delay in America, 
and Venetian judges would look with disgust on the 
modern practice of treating a felon like a pet or 
a hero. 

The law of Venice grew out of the old Roman 
roots. The peculiar nature of the Dogado and its 
occupations called for special legislation. Doge 
Malipiero (1178-92) attempted to reduce the vari- 
ous laws to uniformity, and from his time date the 
Statutes, in five books, including one on canon 
law. Immediately afterward, Enrico Dandolo pro- 
mulgated a new code of criminal law (Promissione 
del Maleficio, 1195). His successor, Pietro Ziani, 
drew up a nautical capitulary (1225) ; and then 
Jacopo Tiepolo ordered a complete code to be 
framed. True to her individuality, Venice had her 
laws and conducted her trials in the vernacular 
a practice which benefited the common people, al- 
though it may account for the lack of eminent legal 
writers among her jurisprudents. In the course 
of centuries laws were passed for every conceivable 
trifling affair, and, as always happens when law- 
making becomes a mania, they were mostly inopera- 
tive. But in the great branches of legislation in 
their marine law, in their commercial contracts, and 
in the penal code the Venetians were pioneers, 
and deserve the attention of some competent stu- 
dent of comparative legislation. Their courts held 
so high a reputation for fairness that many for- 



222 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

eigners referred their suits to them, and the Law 
School at Padua became, under Venetian patronage, 
the first in Europe. 

In one most important matter Venice stood firm : 
she refused to allow civil or mixed causes to be 
tried in the ecclesiastical court. This was in accord- 
ance with her rigid separation of the State from the 
Church. Even in consenting to the introduction of 
the Inquisition (1289), she took care to protect herself 
and her citizens from its tyranny by insisting that 
the Papal Nuncio, the Patriarch, and the Father 
Inquisitor, who directed the Holy Office, must be 
approved by the Doge, and must report without 
reserve their proceedings to him and to the Senate. 
The Republic herself, as a further safeguard, ap- 
pointed a board of Three Sages for Heresy (Savii 
air Eresia). As a result, her annals show no Que- 
madero, no Smithfield, no Tyburn Hill. Here and 
there a heretic may have suffered, but there was no 
general persecution. For Venice permitted the In- 
quisition to deal only with Eoman Catholics, because 
they alone could rightly be held answerable to the 
discipline of their Church. She did not disturb 
adherents of other creeds. The Greek Church, to 
which many of her subjects belonged, enjoyed espe- 
cial favor; Armenians, Slavonians, and Albanians, 
and even German Protestants, had their places of 
worship in the capital itself. 

We need not examine in detail the minor officers 
of government, each of whom fitted exactly into the 
intricate mechanism. A highly organized police 



X VENETIAN CIVILIZATION 223 

corresponded to the sleepless vigilance of the Ten 
and Three. There were inspectors of the Mint, of 
flour, salt, and grain ; censors who watched over pub- 
lic morals ; an active board of health ; commissioners 
to see that the canals were dredged, others who 
determined fair wages, arbitrated quarrels between 
merchants and employers, and condemned poor 
work; inspectors of meats, sealers of weights and 
measures, who also regulated shop signs and heard 
the grievances of apprentices and servants; in- 
spectors of inns and taphouses, who condemned 
sour or musty wines ; superconsuls, who looked 
after the interests of creditors ; and a host of no- 
taries, syndics, and petty placemen, besides the 
usual fiscal and marine officials of a great port. 
The Arsenal, the chief of the public works, on 
which the safety of the Kepublic depended in war 
and her commerce at all times, had an elaborate 
government of its own, which rigidly insisted on 
the highest skill in shipbuilding, economy, and a 
thorough audit. 

Stability and efficiency those were the ideals 
of Venice. To secure stability and prevent des- 
potism, she subdivided responsibility in the execu- 
tive branch, and centralized it in the administrative. 
Check and countercheck was everywhere her plan. 
For the sake of efficiency, she adopted an unpar- 
alleled system for training experts. When a 
patrician was twenty years old, if he showed prom- 
ise, she made him sit in the Great Council as an 
apprentice, so that, by the time he was of legal age, 



224 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

he had learned the business of the Council and had 
known the heads of the state. Then he was tested 
iu one office after another, from lower to higher, 
until he had proved his eligibility to the Sages, the 
College, or the Ten itself. Short terms and rapid 
rotation in office prevented a dangerous or incapa- 
ble man from becoming a fixture in any part of the 
government, gave every able politician the chance 
of filling several different posts, and opened to many 
the hope of filling at least one post. Only the 
Doge, the Grand Chancellor, and the Procurators of 
St. Mark had a life tenure ; most officials held office 
for a year, and could not be at once reflected. The 
Ducal Councilors sat eight months with the Doge 
and four months with the Criminal Forty, thus 
combining in the course of a twelvemonth the 
duties of a privy councilor and of a judge of ap- 
peal. This interlocking of functions was a favor- 
ite practice. Two of the Three, for instance, were 
Decemvirs, and the third was a Ducal Councilor. 
Moreover, the custom of choosing a special commis- 
sion, or junta (zonta, in Venetian), to deal with an 
emergency a custom which in later days was 
freely abused served still further to bring 
together men from different departments. By 
this means, while the organic relation of one 
department with another was emphasized, the 
individual gained an all-round knowledge of various 
business; by this means also the worst evils 
of secrecy were mitigated ; for there were always 
many ex-members of the secret councils who could 



x VENETIAN CIVILIZATION 225 

judge from their own experience what either the 
Ten or the Three for the time being were about. 

The despotism of no autocrat has been more 
terrible than that of Robespierre's Committee of 
Public Safety : to guard against such a possibility 
the cautious Republic adopted the system of rota- 
tion, which freed her from the risk of the collec- 
tive tyranny of boards chosen for a long term or for 
life. And yet, by a paradox, she secured continuity 
of policy and efficiency of administration, through 
having always on hand a large number of men, 
trained in all branches of the public service, whom 
she could draw upon to fill any particular office. 
She suffered no shirking : a patrician might neither 
refuse nor resign the charge she laid upon him. 

A political system so elaborate and so efficient 
could spring from only a high civilization. No 
other government has trusted so loyally to special- 
ists ; no other ruling class has taken such endless 
pains to train experts. If the patricians swayed the 
state for their own interest, they gave it in return 
immense prosperity. Nowhere else were taxes 
so light, and we hear few complaints from either 
the boiirgeoisie or the common people of unequal 
burdens. We may say of the Venetian oligarchy 
that as a working system it came nearer to perfec- 
tion than any other form of government has come. 

We have already described how Venice regulated 

commerce and gave to the coming and going of 

her fleets the momentum of her collective wisdom 

and strength. She early developed a financial sys- 

Q 



226 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

tern suited to the demands of trade on an interna- 
tional scale. About 1160 the government made a 
loan, and a dozen years later organized a public debt 
on which it issued scrip and paid interest. Thence- 
forward, Venetian funds were so highly esteemed 
that foreign rulers,' not excepting certain popes, 
eagerly invested their money in them ; but the Sen- 
ate reserved the right to reject applicants whom 
it deemed undesirable. A sound currency being in- 
dispensable to sound business, Venice put forth a 
coinage which long served as the standard. Her 
first gold ducat, struck by Giovanni Dandolo, dating 
from 1284, passed current in all lands throughout 
the Middle Age as the English sovereign passes 
to-day. When inedievals referred to "the Mint," 
they meant the Mint of Venice, of which the 
word "sequin," the other name for ducat, was a 
reminder. 1 

The conquest of Constantinople resulted in a 
rapid increase of the volume of trade throughout 
the thirteenth century, and before 1300 the money 
changers began to organize private banks, through 
which the great international transactions were car- 
ried on until 1537, when the government opened 
the first state bank. Many of the nobles, among 
whom we find the names of Soranzo, Priuli, Pisani, 

1 Sequin is from the Italian zecchino, which in turn comes 
from Zccca, the mint. But Zecca itself, according to local ety- 
mologists, is the old Venetian for Zuecca, that is Giudecca, the 
Jewish quarter of the city, where the first mint was opened. 
Other etymologists trace Zecca to the Arabic Sikka, a stamp 
for coins. 



x VENETIAN CIVILIZATION 227 

Lippomano, Vendramin, Sanudo, and Tiepolo, en- 
gaged in banking, sometimes as an adjunct to their 
operations as merchants. 

But although Venice led the modern world in 
methods of commerce, she did not outgrow in her 
economic system the medieval ideals of a protective 
tariff, export duties, and government monopolies. 
The time came when protectionism brought its 
retribution. 

Medieval, also, was the slave trade, in which Ve- 
netians engaged down to the seventeenth century. 
They bought slaves, mostly Slavs, Georgians, and 
Circassians, at Tana and Kaffa in the Crimea, and 
sold the men in Egypt and the women to the Chris- 
tians of Western Europe. The government repeat- 
edly forbade the traffic, but its prohibitions had 
little effect, and as late as about 1580 there were 
three thousand slaves in the capital. Venice fol- 
lowed the common practice of enslaving prisoners 
captured in war, their usual doom, being to man the 
oars of the galleys. 



CHAPTER XI 

VENETIAN CIVILIZATION: LIFE AND ART 

IN manners and the arts of life, the Venetians 
naturally, from their wealth, their intercourse with 
the East, and their isolated position, which screened 
them from invasion, took the lead. Medicine flour- 
ished among them. They had hospitals, a quaran- 
tine system, a lazaretto, and municipal physicians 
long in advance of their neighbors. They were a 
philanthropic people, as their magdalens and or- 
phanages, their foundling asylums and convales- 
cent homes bore witness. They were fond of 
birds, music, and flowers, and they loved pets. 
Morosini the Peloponnesian carried his favorite 
cat on his campaigns. Their dolce maniera, their 
sweet manner, which their proverbial dignity 
did not overshadow, early distinguished them. 1 
How many a race has grown rich without ever 
being able to acquire either dignity or charm ! 
" When a son is born to a Venetian," remarked a 
Milanese traveler, " a lord is born into the world ; " 
and indeed this was true, for to be a Venetian 
citizen was equivalent to a patent of nobility else- 

1 A Lombard envoy about 940 remarked on the politeness of 
the Venetians. 

228 



CHAP, xi VENETIAN CIVILIZATION 229 

where. Wealth brought ease and comfort, and 
poured into the capital city whatever luxuries the 
world could give. 

It is more difficult to appraise the Venetian 
standard of morals. Each generation has its par- 
ticular vices, which it judges tolerantly while it 
condemns those of other generations. So youth 
abhors the avarice and worldliness of age, and age 
censures the profligacy of youth. In Venice a high 
code of honor prevailed in business. Merchants 
were gentlemen. The world has never seen a 
similar merchant nobility ; for elsewhere, as soon 
as trade brought sufficient wealth to make a noble 
of its possessor, he abandoned trade. England, 
who owes her strength to trade and shopkeeping, 
has no terms so damning as " tradesman" and " shop- 
keeper." The Venetian, on the contrary, glorying 
in his occupation, knew the art of being both 
tradesman and patrician, and each of his roles 
helped the other; for the sense of honor which 
governed him as a patrician leavened his business 
transactions. One symptom of the decadence of 
the Eepublic was the withdrawal of the nobles 
from business. 

In sexual license, Venice early got an unenvi- 
able notoriety. Her people were by temperament 
voluptuous; they had wealth for gratifying their 
desires. Being the chief port in the world, Venice 
always harbored a large floating population of sailors 
and foreigners ; later, rich travelers and pleasure- 
seekers flocked to her. Intercourse with the East 



230 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

exposed her to the contagion of Asiatic vice. 
Loose as her morals were, however, it may be 
doubted whether they were relatively worse down 
to the end of the sixteenth century than those of 
Naples or Rome, of Florence or Milan, of Paris or 
London. The difference seems to have been not 
so much in the extent as in the character of the 
dissipation, which at Venice was noted for its gay- 
ety. The government passed frequent laws to 
restrict and punish ; but, like the sumptuary laws 
with which the Venetian Statute Book is sown, they 
had little effect. The belief spread, indeed, that 
the Ten willingly saw voluptuousness sap energy 
which might otherwise seek an outlet in political 
affairs. So to amuse the lower classes there were 
unrivaled pageants and ceremonies in which every 
one took part. 

Coming to her intellectual and spiritual life, the 
charge is often brought that Venice produced no 
world poet, no great literature. Some critics at- 
tribute this to her oligarchic government, which 
tended to stifle individuality; others, to commer- 
cialism, the alleged sworn foe to ideals ; others, to 
luxury, amid which the soul languishes ; others, to 
her too constant happiness, which deprived her of 
those tragic experiences in which master poets are 
cradled. Each of these causes may have had its 
influence, but not all of them combined can fully 
explain. For we can no more explain than foresee 
a master poet. When he comes, we study his 
environment, and proudly declare that it accounts 



xi VENETIAN CIVILIZATION 231 

for him whereas it merely furnishes him with 
his material. If comparative freedom be requisite, 
why did not the Flemish towns swarm with poetic 
genius ? If commercialism destroys idealists, why 
was there the glorious Victorian age in England ? 
If luxury be a bar, how could Virgil and Horace 
nourish under Augustus ? Who would pick out 
the somewhat dowdy, provincial little court of 
Weimar as a fit stage for Goethe and Schiller, or 
deem the general despotic conditions of eighteenth- 
century Germany most propitious for her master- 
pieces ? And happy though Venice was, extraordi- 
narily happy compared to her contemporaries, she 
too knew the tragic undercurrents of life. Yet no 
great singer immortalized either her glories or her 
defeats, while Ferrara, only a day's journey away, 
claimed Ariosto and Torquato Tasso. 

Venice bore many chroniclers, but none of high 
literary merit, and several invaluable diarists, whose 
records are open windows through which we look at 
a full-blooded people throbbing with life. Her am- 
bassadors excelled as writers of despatches. Only 
in the political polemics of Sarpi, however, have we 
work of the first rank, and only in his History of 
the Council of Trent an important historical nar- 
rative. Just at the end of the Republic's career, 
Goldoni and Gozzi created a genuine comic litera- 
ture which paints with obvious fidelity the follies 
of the dying social order. Goldoni wrote the best 
of his comedies in the Venetian dialect, the medium 
also for a great mass of popular poetry. The fact 



232 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

that Venetian was a dialect, must have hindered the 
production of the noblest literary forms: its early 
adoption for public business shows the determina- 
tion of the Venetians to be sufficient unto them- 
selves in all things. 

Although Venice bred no school of literature, she 
welcomed scholars, and after the fall of Constan- 
tinople she gave refuge to many learned Greeks. 
Her upper classes were cultivated : they patronized 
great teachers liberally and collected books and 
manuscripts with the connoisseur's zeal. The col- 
lection which Petrarch left her became the nucleus 
of her magnificent Marcian Library, and many of 
her patricians had private libraries famous for their 
treasures. While printing was still in its infancy, 
the Venetian press sent out models of typography 
and bookmaking, and thanks to the taste and care 
of Jenson, Aldus, and her other master printers, 
the classics of Greece and Home were collected, 
edited, and published in a manner which long re- 
mained unapproached. Throughout the sixteenth 
century, indeed, Venice led the world in publishing, 
led it not only in technical excellence, but in range, 
her toleration being a godsend to authors of doubt- 
ful orthodoxy. Next to creating great literature 
come the love and reverence for it, and the skill to 
preserve it in forms at once practical and noble. 

Explain her dearth in literature as we will, Venice 
displayed in the Fine Arts gifts of the highest 
order, imagination, idealism, harmony, and a 
matchless sense of beauty. As Englishmen and 



xi VENETIAN CIVILIZATION 233 

Americans draw four fifths of their culture from 
books, they are likely to underrate the culture 
which speaks through the plastic arts and painting. 
Yet St. Mark's Church may have had for the people 
who saw it daily the cultural equivalent of an Iliad 
or an Antigone. 

Architecture has nowhere else been so hampered 
by natural conditions, and nowhere else has it so 
victoriously surmounted them. With no solid bot- 
tom to found on, her builders had to guard against 
the constant erosion of the tides. The earliest Ve- 
netians put up wooden houses : then they brought 
stone from the mainland and set to work on their 
churches. Only after the removal of the capital to 
the Kialtine islets appeared architecture which was 
the forerunner of the Venetian style. The Byzan- 
tine work at Eavenna served as a model ; and inter- 
course with Constantinople made this the prevailing 
style until the end of the thirteenth century. But 
other streams of influence swept in to modify it 
the Saracenic from the time of the Crusades, and 
the Gothic from the middle of the thirteenth cen- 
tury. Out of the blending or combination of these 
elements arose the architectural marvels of Venice. 

St. Mark's Church, originally the private chapel 
of the Doge, was burnt in 970. Orseolo the Great 
at once began a large basilica to replace it. This 
was completed in 1071, and forms the inner walls 
of the church which we know to-day. Doge vied 
with Doge in beautifying it. Arcades, chapels, 
transepts, grew up round the parent structure. 



234 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

Domes and pinnacles rose above it. Marbles most 
precious and most beautiful, alabaster, porphyry, 
clothed the bare brick walls ; columns aud pilasters 
and capitals, spoils from Syria, Byzantium, and 
Greece, were fitted into the structure as if they had 
grown there. On the gold background of the inte- 
rior, scenes from the Bible were wrought in mosaic 
after designs by the great artists of each generation. 
Such splendor of color, such richness of material, 
such harmony of plan and adaptation of each part 
to its end, have never been united in one edi- 
fice before. Here the Venetians worshiped their 
God ; here they poured out their offerings to their 
patron and solemnized their historic festivals ; 
here they bowed themselves in supplication, con- 
firmed the election of their doges, chanted their 
Te Deu-ms of victory. St. Mark's was the symbol 
of the life and aspiration of the nation, and in its 
fusion of Byzantine and Saracenic and Gothic, as 
in its interweaving of the most precious materials 
of many lands, it typified the cosmopolitan spirit 
of the Venetians, and their sense of beauty which 
subdued all things to its own perfection. 

The Ducal Palace, in similar fashion the growth 
of centuries, was a building unique. In the days 
of the earlier doges a fortified stronghold, it 
took on, with the progress of civilization, the aspect 
of a palace. Fire destroyed it in 976 and in 1106 ; 
Sebastiano Ziani enlarged it; finally, Pietro Gra- 
denigo, soon after the Closing of the Great Council, 
began the faqade on the Lagoon, the design of which 



xi VENETIAN CIVILIZATION 235 

was followed along the western front. In 1422, 
Tommaso Mocenigo urged the completion of this 
western faqade, which was done. In 1439-42, Bar- 
tolommeo Bon the first architect of whose name 
we can be sure as connected with a special work 
erected the Porta della Carta. In 1479 the interior 
of the Palace on the Lagoon was burnt, and its 
rebuilding dragged on for seventy years. Another 
fire in 1574 damaged the ducal apartments, the Hall 
of the Great Council and the neighboring quarters, 
which were quickly restored. The faqades on the 
courtyard and the Giants' Staircase date from the 
earlier Renaissance. Thus the Ducal Palace em- 
bodies the tastes of four centuries, and dovetails 
into a central harmony the divers plans of many 
builders. 

Throughout the city we find the same juxtaposi- 
tion of styles, although those of the Renaissance 
and its degenerate offshoots, being the most recent, 
outnumber the others. The Fondaco dei Turchi, 
too garish in its restoration, and the Loredan, Far- 
setti, and Da Mosto palaces represent the Byzantine. 
For the Gothic we turn to the churches of the Frari 
and Sts. John and Paul, and to such a group of 
palaces as have had no equals in the world. The 
Foscari, the Doria, the beautiful upper story of the 
Palazzo Ariani, the Pisani, the Bernardo, the Con- 
tarini-Fasan, the Ca d' Oro, sprang from her radiant 
prime. The Renaissance brought other ideals, al- 
though for a long time Venice stamped her own 
individuality upon it. The Lombard! family, of 



236 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

whom the eldest began to work about 1450, had the 
art of producing beautiful effects through small 
areas, as in the Church of St. Mary of the Miracles, 
or of handling large masses, as in the facade of 
S. Zaccaria; while in the Dario and the Cornero- 
Spinelli palaces, especially in the former, they 
designed facades almost comparable to the Vene- 
tian Gothic. In the facade of the Vendramin- 
Calergi, massive in bulk and rigid in lines, they 
led the way to the architecture of the later Renais- 
sance, in which one seeks in vain for the typical 
Venetian beauty. The sixteenth-century architects 
Sammichele, who built the Grimaui and Cornero- 
Mocenigo palaces ; Sansovino, renowned for the 
Mint, Library of St. Mark, and the Loggetta ; Pal- 
ladio, who planned the S. Giorgio Maggiore and 
the Redentore churches ; and Scamozzi, designer of 
the Procuratie Nuove filled Venice with their 
neo-classical structures, some of which were master- 
pieces, but suggestive of bigness rather than of 
grandeur, of purse pride and the gloom of a decay- 
ing patriciate. Were the Grand Canal lined with 
a succession of Grimani palaces, had Palladio built 
St. Mark's and Scamozzi the Ducal Palace, Venice, 
incomparable in beauty, would never have been. 
For it is not the Lagoon and the canals, not the 
turquoise sky or gorgeous sunsets, not even the 
strangeness of her site, that make Venice : it is 
the beautiful works of man. With Longhena the 
series of great builders ends. In the Pesaro and 
Rezzonico palaces he reached the limit of neo- 



xi VENETIAN CIVILIZATION 237 

classic correctness, in the Church of Sta. Maria 
della Salute he foreshadowed the Baroque, which 
he elaborated in the Church of the Scalzi. The 
cycle of evolution had come round : after long 
trials, Beauty, then Correctness, then Rigidity, and 
at last, in the attempt to break loose from the 
strait-jacket, Contortion, Whim, Folly. 

Venice can boast of no preeminent sculptors, 
although her buildings are covered with beautiful 
carvings. Sculpture was subordinated to architec- 
ture, and not until the Renaissance does it stand 
out as a separate art. Byzantine workmen proba- 
bly chiseled the earliest remaining decorations, and 
Florentines cut many, if not all, of the capitals for 
the facades of the Ducal Palace. Who designed 
the groups at the angles of the Palace, or those 
tombs of the earlier doges, which breathe the spirit 
of piety and awe ? Their names are unknown or 
disputed. Not a Venetian, but a Florentine, Andrea 
Verrocchio, created the model of the equestrian 
statue of Colleoni, a masterpiece for which the 
succeeding four centuries have furnished no peer. 
The Renaissance sculptors Leopardo, Sansovino, 
Vittoria were prolific producers, but with few 
exceptions their works were primarily architectu- 
ral. It is from the ducal monuments in the 
churches of the Frari and of Sts. John and Paul 
that we can trace, as in an epitome, the course of 
sculpture at Venice: from the earnest piety ex- 
pressed in the tomb of Michele Morosini (died 1382), 
and the solemnity in that of Tommaso Mocenigo 



238 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

(died 1423), to the vulgar display, extravagance, and 
ugliness in that of Giovanni Pesaro (died 1G58). 
Longhena designed the last, in which he appropri- 
ately made the figure of the Doge insignificant; one 
sees first and remembers longest the colossal negro 
slaves, through whose torn breeches the black mar- 
ble shows, and the absurd, underfed monsters, 
which are too big and clumsy for pets and too 
meek for dragons. Sculpture, like Architecture, 
had sunk into the Baroque. 

Painting was the youngest of the arts at Venice. 
Down to the fifteenth century the wooden Byzantine 
religious paintings, in truth mere icons, prevailed. 
From 1432 dates the Coronation of the Virgin, by 
Jacopo del Fiore, which, though stiff and archaic, 
is no longer Byzantine. Close on Jacopo follow 
Bartolommeo and Alvise Vivarini and Andrea da 
Murano, in whose works there is a less formal wor- 
ship and a further progress toward technical skill. 
Contemporary with them was Jacopo Bellini, the 
father of Gentile and Giovanni, who flourished 
during the last quarter of the century. Gentile Bel- 
lini (1421-1507) painted the pageants of his time, 
filling his canvases with splendidly clothed patri- 
cians and clerics, and taking care to be accurate, yet 
in no slavish, pettifogging way. With Giovanni 
Bellini (1426-1516) we come to a master of almost 
the first rank. He imagined Madonnas of a new 
type, human, innocent, dignified, without either the 
cloying simplesse of the Umbrian primitives, or 
the careworn soberness of Botticelli's Madonnas. 



xi VENETIAN CIVILIZATION 239 

The faces of his holy men and women are stamped 
with character; his cherubs in the Frari triptych 
are the loveliest flesh-and-blood little boys ever put 
on canvas, and the best of his portraits that of 
Doge Loredauo falls little below the highest. 
He chose for the most part religious subjects, as 
did also Carlo Crivelli, Cima da Conegliano, Basaiti, 
Catena, and their fellows; but already the spirit of 
Venice penetrated their work, and religion as they 
portrayed it meant neither other-worlclliness nor as- 
ceticism. More poetic was Carpaccio (1470?-1519), 
a painter whose picturesque subjects appeal to 
every one, and Avhose spirit certain fortunate persons 
are born to delight in just as others feel the spell of 
Spenser among poets. In the Legend of St. Ursula 
he chronicled the splendid life of Venice, scenes in 
which handsome youths and lovely maidens, high- 
bred senators and stately matrons, are touched with 
indefinable grace ; or in St. Ursula's Dream, he 
painted virgin innocence; or, in the Presentation, 
he expressed deep religious sentiment. Happy 
those artists whose works are a perpetual Maytime, 
fresh, joyous, delightful, even a little incomplete, 
prophetic of a later fruitage and harvest : Carpaccio 
was one of these. 

All these men felt the influence of Giovanni Bel- 
lini, most of them being his pupils ; and from his 
studio, near the end of the century, issued two youths 
who soon lifted Venetian Painting to its zenith. One 
of these, Giorgione (1477-1511), Big George of 
Castelf ranco, embodied, to judge by his few remain- 



240 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

ing works, the uncorrupted joy of living. Beings of 
exuberant health who throb with primal passions ; 
a landscape where trees grow luxuriantly and death- 
less flowers bloom ; all pervaded by a strange, strong 
beauty and glowing with such colors as no earlier 
painter imagined this is what Giorgione painted. 
To call it Pagan does not define it, for Pagaii sug- 
gests comparison, if not conflict, with Christian. 
Giorgione did not analyze, much less theologize. 
He drank life in great draughts like wine : and we 
look at his superb creations with no more concern 
for moral or immoral considerations than when we 
watch a leopard at play or a mountain stream flash- 
ing on its way to the valley. Yet before he died, 
his thirty-fourth year unfinished, he had fathomed 
character, as his portraits show. The man at the 
harpsichord (in The Concert) was no Pagan. 

Titian of Cadore (1477-1576), ripening in Gior- 
gione's companionship, and outliving him more than 
threescore years, 1 carried forward the splendor of 
color into every field. His range of theme was ency- 
clopedic, his mastery almost unfailing. You will 
search his hundreds of canvases in vain for eccen- 
tricities. He never tried to startle, never stooped 
to tricks, but painted straightforwardly. I doubt 
whether any other genius in any art has left so many 
works of such uniform excellence. Yet he has never 
the monotony of dead-level output. In his steadi- 

1 1 accept 1477 as the year of Titian's birth ; recent sugges- 
tions that he was born later do not appear to be proved. Neither 
is the fantastic attribution to Titian of The Concert proved. 



xi VENETIAN CIVILIZATION 241 

ness, his capacity for taking up each subject and con- 
quering it, and in his power of continuous labor, he 
best represents the spirit of the Venetian Republic. 
He had to perfection the culture of the Renaissance, 
welcoming with the same hospitality Christian 
story and classic myth, saints and satyrs, apostles 
and nymphs, the God of Christendom and the gods 
of Olympus, he turned from one to another with 
a noble impartiality. In his enlightened worldli- 
ness, he reminds us of Goethe, but Titian was pos- 
sessed by the spirit of beauty to a degree unknown 
in Germany. We sometimes miss in him the vernal 
charm of Giorgione and the imagination of Tintoret, 
but he never disappoints us by ill-wrought concep- 
tions. He attempts nothing which he cannot achieve 
without apparent effort. He disdains the ignoble. 
Could anything be more adequate than the mis- 
named Sacred and Profane Love, or the Three Ages 
of Man, or the Pesaro Madonna, or the Assumption, 
or the Danaes and the Venuses, or the small Holy 
Family at the Uffizi, or the Flora, or the John the 
Baptist ? Splendid as these are, yet we may almost 
affirm that Titian's genius culminated in portraiture. 
If his portraits could be hung on one wall of a gal- 
lery, opposite the masterpieces of all other portrait 
painters Titian against the world we could best 
understand his primacy; we should see his inde- 
fectible technique, his probing of character, his 
certainty of making a permanent likeness, qualities 
in which some of his rivals have equaled him : and 
then we should have to add in his favor his coloring 



242 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

and the impress of beauty, those inalienable gifts 
of his, which, whether in his portraits or in his 
ideal canvases, glorify and individualize all his 
work. 

If Titian is the supreme Venetian painter, Tinto- 
ret (1512-1594) is the supreme thinker : a man of 
inexhaustible fertility, who like Shakespeare took 
any theme, old or new, recast ir, transmuted its base 
metal into gold, and sent it forth imperishably origi- 
nal. With Tintoret, as with Shakespeare, the story 
to be told was of more consequence than its form ; 
and as his genius teemed with ideas, he sometimes 
tried to express those for which painting is not the 
best medium. He worked with such terrible swift- 
ness that his contemporaries nicknamed him " The 
Thunderbolt," and charged him with carelessness ; 
for to them he seemed bent on astonishing, where- 
as he was really striving to release the swarming 
creatures of his imagination. Coming in the after- 
noon of Italian painting, when the treatment of 
religious subjects had been reduced to formulas, 
he neither followed the conventional patterns nor 
copied himself. The theme that inspired him 
brought its own design. Having the true artist's 
insatiable desire to test his art in all its possibili- 
ties, he experimented in many styles: we find him 
making a daring study, now in perspective, now in 
shadows, now in reflected lights; or, as a sort of 
haughty rejoinder to his critics, he dashes off a 
picture which they mistake for Titian's or Paul's, 
with whose superiority they had taunted him. To 



xi VENETIAN CIVILIZATION 243 

judge Tintoret fairly, we must often determine 
whether his ruling motive in a given work deals 
with the form or the substance. In his master- 
pieces, the two blend. He was a painter with a 
message, but like Shakespeare he leaves the be- 
holder to deduce the message for himself. He had 
swept up and down through all human experience, 
from despair to perfect joy. No other picture is so 
tragic as his Crucifixion, none more pathetic than 
his Christ before Pilate. In a different style, the 
Ariadne and Bacchus and the Mercury and the 
Graces have no rivals. There is no other genius 
whom Tintoret so closely resembles as Shake- 
speare; but Shakespeare lived in the formative 
stage of the English drama, when all was plastic, 
while Tintoret found painting already chilled and 
hampered by traditions, in spite of which he filled 
his canvases with conceptions utterly original. An 
unfailing imagination and a power to vitalize even 
the slightest of his creations set him in a class by 
himself among painters. 

Paul Veronese (1528-1588), his younger contem- 
porary, was the painter of pageants, not of mere 
display, but of pageants which were in themselves 
beautiful works of art and in scenes which shone 
with splendor and with health. Many of his people 
might be dwellers in the Elysian Fields, looking 
neither before nor after, but satisfied with the 
joyous magnificence of the present. He was a 
master decorator, competent alike to cover half 
the ceiling of the Great Council with Venice En- 



244 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

throned, or to fill the small spaces of the Anti- 
Collegio Chamber with ravishing allegorical fig- 
ures. And yet he too knew the meaning of sorrow, 
witness the Crucifixion at S. Sebastiano, although 
he dedicated himself to the service of joy. 

Titian, Tintoret, and Paul made glorious the six- 
teenth century at Venice, and there worked with 
them, either as pupils, colleagues, or rivals, many 
men of great ability. Palma the Elder, Paris Bor- 
done, Sebastiano del Piombo, Bonifazio, Lorenzo 
Lotto each of these deserves a chapter in the his- 
tory of Italian painting ; but although each achieved 
his masterpiece, and some of them more than one, 
their combined talents would not place them on 
the heights which these three and Giorgione com- 
manded. With Tintoret's death, painting declined, 
but the great tradition lived on: and in the eigh- 
teenth century, just before the extinction of the 
Republic, there was a not unmemorable revival, 
when Tiepolo called to mind the energy of Tintoret 
and the decorative charm of Paul ; and Canaletto, 
Guardi, and Longhi painted with fidelity but not 
servilely the canals and buildings and scenes from 
the life of the nobles and the people. 

Venetian Painting has three glories Color, Real- 
ity, Beauty. Its masters played on the emotions 
through an intuitive sense of Color, as composers 
sway the heart by music. To pass from their 
pictures to those of other schools is like passing 
from the glow and luxuriance of June to Novem- 
ber, with its sepia bleakness. The Venetians used 



xi VENETIAN CIVILIZATION 245 

Color with superb largesse, but never to excess: 
they never added it for effect like the pigments 
which the savage tattoos on his body; it flows as 
naturally from their pencils, as from Nature in a 
rose garden. It exalts and delights ; and proves to 
be an aesthetic medium as significant as form. 

The Venetian painters, from Gentile Bellini to 
Tintoret, glorified Reality. They were not realists 
of the modern sort, with a morbid appetite for the 
squalid, the vulgar, the hideous, the vile. They 
were men whom existence intoxicated. They 
might say, with Browning's Saul : 

" How good is man's life, the mere living ! how fit to employ 
All the heart and the soul and the senses forever in joy ! " 

Their conditions were so pleasant, above all Venice 
was so incomparably dear and lovely, an earthly 
paradise, that they did not labor to conceive an 
imaginary heaven, but just took her for the scene 
of even their religious paintings. So they preferred 
subjects familiar to every Venetian, and they 
peopled their canvases with the men and women 
about them, a little idealized, perhaps, yet still es- 
sentially real. As they were healthy, they instinct- 
ively chose to portray health. Other painters, the 
pensive Umbrians or the introspective Florentines, 
sometimes followed too far the ascetic precepts of 
their Church and represented saints and angels as 
thin and haggard beings, too frail for this world, 
overladen with piety or harried by conscience. 
They sometimes subtracted all that they could from 



246 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

the human, without reducing it to a ghost, and be- 
lieved that the residue was spiritual. The Vene- 
tians, on the contrary, revered the human, and 
simply magnified it in order to attain the fittest 
incarnation of the heavenly. They shunned other- 
worldliness, for to them this world was the great 
reality. They worshiped life and not its nega- 
tion. Had there been no Tintoret, we might 
almost have assumed that the Venetians were a 
great people who had, strangely, never been awed 
by the eternal problems of man's origin and des- 
tiny. After making what deductions we will for 
the claims of pride and of glory, and for the entice- 
ments of luxury, we must realize that the Venetian 
painters glorified the human as the highest revela- 
tion of the divine. They accepted life with a 
large, joyous faith, and succeeded in portraying 
Keality in terms of Beauty. 

That gift of Beauty sets them apart from all 
other painters. It was an instinct which every- 
thing conspired to make their ruling passion. It 
should be, whatever confused prophets of ugliness 
may say, the final purpose of all art. Velasquez, 
the great Spaniard, Rembrandt, the great Dutch- 
man, may equal or surpass the master Venetians 
in technique; but they fall far behind them in 
their feeling for Beauty. Titian would have held, 
and with reason, that the Lesson in Anatomy was 
not a proper subject for painting. We must go 
back to the Greek sculptors of the age of Scopas 
and Praxiteles, to find a body of artists who, like 



xi VENETIAN CIVILIZATION 247 

the Venetians, produced work radiant with Beauty 
and Health. 

By a happy coincidence, which has never been 
repeated, Venice was able to express through Paint- 
ing the whole range of human interests. Elsewhere 
this has been done by literature only, and only 
three or four times. The Venetian painter might 
draw his inspiration from either the Old Testament 
or the New, from the stories of Christian saints 
and martyrs, and from the teachings of the Catho- 
lic Church ; or he might seek his subject in classi- 
cal antiquity, in the mythologies of Greece and 
Koine, in the ideals of Paganism, seen through the 
iridescent atmosphere of Humanism ; or his im- 
agination might be kindled by Venezia herself, 
and embody on canvas episodes in her glorious 
history, views of her actual pageants, illustrations 
of her legends, allegories of her power and splendor 
and ideals ; or he might perpetuate the faces of her 
men and women ; or create the first great land- 
scapes. Thus the three streams of religious sub- 
jects Hebrew, Christian, and Catholic united 
at Venice with the streams of Classical Mythology, 
of national interests, of portraiture, and of landscape, 
as they have never done elsewhere. 

These various influences combined to provide an 
unrivaled wealth of material, and Destiny favored 
the Venetian masters yet further by letting them 
flourish after the drudgery of their art had been 
performed by others, and thus allowing them to 
rise swiftly to that perfection of skill by which 



248 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

they achieved their work with apparent ease. They 
were fortunate in coming, not only at the culmina- 
tion of Painting, but at the moment when they 
could benefit to the full from the best spirit of the 
Renaissance. As the Renaissance penetrated to 
Venice later than to her Italian neighbors, it 
kindled in her a noble enthusiasm for culture a 
generation after it had led to decadence among 
them ; and, thanks to her more solid and conserva- 
tive character, she long resisted its demoralizing 
tendencies. As a final help to totality of expression, 
costume which counts for so much in Painting 
was beautiful both in cut and color at Venice in the 
sixteenth century. 

So it is that her masters address us from the 
height of a civilization which embraced all the then 
known world and all the past in its ken. Compared 
with Titian's breadth of culture and Tintoret's 
cosmic outlook, the range of subjects covered by 
Velasquez or by Rembrandt is narrow and their 
treatment provincial. Velasquez speaks to us out 
of the Spain of Philip IV, the Spain whose message 
was decay national, moral, and intellectual decay. 
Rembrandt did, indeed, tally with a period of 
national vigor in Holland, but the spirit of the 
Dutch has always been provincial, the counterpole 
of the Renaissance. 

To the Painting of Venice we must turn, there- 
fore, if we would see the truest expression of the 
genius of a race which had known how to overcome 
incredible physical difficulties, had conquered its 



xi VENETIAN CIVILIZATION 249 

enemies, and had risen natiirally to a magnificent 
and balanced scale of life. That expression, in its 
Color, its Eeality, and its Beauty, remains one of 
the most precious revelations of Art, a legacy such 
as only Greece has bequeathed for the joy and ex- 
altation of mankind. 



CHAPTER XII 
THE LOSS OF CYPRUS 

WHAT is the real life of a man, the true history 
of a people ? How far shall the historian, looking 
backward over the centuries of a nation's decline, 
color his pages with the wisdom of retrospect? 
The Peace of Cambrai, in 1529, left Venice a medi- 
ocre power, the historian to-da} r sees that clearly ; 
but throughout the sixteenth century neither she 
nor her contemporaries saw it. They knew that 
her prestige had suffered, that the tide of sea com- 
merce had set away from her, that her hold on the 
Orient was slackening; but outwardly these dis- 
asters hardly appeared. Her magnificence dazzled 
more than ever before. Her wealth seemed in- 
exhaustible. Her vigor, judged by the well-being 
of all classes of her people, seemed unimpaired. 
Her patricians had the assured port of a race to 
whom conquest and prosperity had been hereditary 
for five hundred years. Above all, in the century 
between the coming of Charles VIII (1494) and the 
death of Tintoret (1594), Venice blazed in a glory of 
art, so beautiful, so strong, so healthy, that one is 
loath to believe, even now, that it signalized decay. 
Confronted by these contrasts, we ask, Which was 
250 



CHAP, xii THE LOSS OF CYPRUS 251 

the real Venice ? How shall the historian make it 
evident that, while the political power was sinking 
into decrepitude, the social capital and home of art 
was gloriously alive ? 

At the very moment when the enemies of the 
Republic shatter her empire forever, the young 
Giorgione and the young Titian are conquering for 
her a new empire, which shall last as long as one of 
their canvases remains. Sixty years later, when the 
Turk wrests Cyprus from her, and with Cyprus goes 
the great witness of her dominion in the East, 
Tintoret and Paul Veronese are covering the walls 
of her Ducal Palace with records of her grandeur, 
which they thought imperishable. The relation be- 
tween a nation's political condition and a golden age 
in its art or letters is too intricate to be explained by a 
general rule. Genius still evades scientific scrutiny. 
We have fallen into the strange error of regarding 
the few masters who create the world's poems, 
pictures, statues, stories, as representative men : 
whereas they are of all men the most unrepresenta- 
tive men, being so highly individualized as to be the 
exceptions to all. Wealth and war also often give 
a false measure of a nation's real strength. Thus, 
during the blackest days of the Cambrai Coalition, 
when Venice had been driven from Terra Firma, 
she abated nothing in the gorgeousness of her 
pageants at home. The very grandees who would 
not respond to the Doge's call for contributions for 
defense, lavished their wealth on sumptuous enter- 
tainments, and the state itself, while it officially 



252 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

strove to check private extravagance, connived at 
public display. Which of these is the vital 
symptom the battle lost or the poured-out 
wealth ? 

These questions rise continually as we survey 
Venice in the sixteenth century. Many observers 
have been led astray because they attached a wrong 
symptomatic value to politics, war, finance, or to the 
wonderful efflorescence of the fine arts at this 
period. Especially must we take care not to mix 
physical causes in considering the products of the 
imagination. Many a consumptive has begotten 
works glowing with health ; many an aged master 
has enriched the world with creations of fadeless 
youth. So, in the case of Venice, you must go 
behind the disease and the old age if you would 
discover the source of her glorious paintings. 
Deeper, ever deeper, must be the search for historic 
causes. He alone who knew all human history 
could explain any fact. Let us, therefore, be 
unready to accept hasty explanations. 

In the course of this sketch I have tried to show 
how the unique conditions under which Venice 
was born and grew up favored her early maturity. 
While the rest of Western Europe was engaged 
in almost unceasing warfare, she was busy in com- 
merce. Long before the states which were to spring 
out of the wreck of the Roman Empire and to form 
the modern world had taken shape, she had de- 
veloped an intricate political system, perfectly 
adapted to her needs. So she had wealth, civili- 



xn THE LOSS OF CYPRUS 253 

zation, and a stable government far in advance of 
her neighbors. She had always been independent. 
Her polity, the perfectly natural outcome of her 
experience, was not, like the Holy Roman Empire, 
an echo, an imitation. For centuries she enjoyed 
the advantages which a middle-aged person has 
over a parcel of youths ; now, they had grown 
up, and she was old. And not age merely threatened 
her, but strange and thwarting conditions, under 
which, had they always existed, she could never 
have flourished. She had stored up so much 
strength, her constitution was so sound, her sa- 
gacity and knowledge of the arts of life were so 
seasoned, that she was able to resist for a long time 
the double evils of changed conditions and old age. 
It was as if a venerable sequoia should be trans- 
planted to an alien climate, in which it must slowly 
but inevitably decay. 

The interest in the last centuries of the existence 
of Venice lies chiefly in seeing how she faced the 
younger world, which she could not hope to master, 
so that she succeeded almost to the end in appear- 
ing, outwardly at least, every inch a queen. 

Let us examine, first, her imperial relations, which 
tested her physical vigor. The wars of Cambrai 
cut off her hope of expansion on Terra Firma. Her 
alliance against France when France was defeated, 
and her alliance against Spain when Spain was vic- 
torious, warned her to be neutral in the further 
contests of the powers. But in the East there lay 
waiting an adversary toward whom, when he chose 



254 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

to spring, she could not remain impassive. Her 
great business henceforth was to resist the en- 
croachments of the Turk a stniggle which she 
kept up gallantly, though with evident loss from 
decade to decade, until she and her adversary had 
worn themselves out. 

From the beginning of the fifteenth century the 
Ottomans were ruled by a series of sultans of singu- 
lar ability, warriors fit to lead a host thirsting 
terribly for conquest, statesmen capable of organiz- 
ing and governing the empire which they so rapidly 
acquired. Only two Christian powers, Hungary 
and Venice, bordered on the Turkish dominions. 
It fell to Hungary to oppose the Turkish invaders 
who poured through the Balkan passes and swept 
up the valley of the Danube in their hope of pierc- 
ing to the heart of Europe. The heroic deeds 
of the Magyars in those wars make the brightest 
chapters in the history of Hungary. Time after 
time the Turk was driven back; but at last, in 
1526, Solyman the Magnificent returned with an 
army of three hundred thousand men ; he took Bel- 
grade and Peterwardein ; at Mohacs (August 29, 
1526) he utterly routed the Hungarian king, Louis 
II, who was killed ; and on September 10 he made 
his triumphant entry into Buda. This left Venice 
to cope unaided in the Levant and on the sea with 
Solyman. 

Ever since her earlier wars, which ended in the 
disaster at Sapienza (1499), she had studiously 
avoided a rupture. She winced at the loss of 



xn THE LOSS OF CYPRUS 255 

prestige, she writhed at the loss of territory, but, 
commerce being more necessary to her than pride, 
she paid the Turk not a tribute, she would not 
call it that for permission to trade in his empire. 
Real peace did not exist. Turkish pirates the 
most famous of whom, Chaireddin Barbarossa, 
was in Solyman's service preyed on Venetian 
shipping. Between the vessels of the two coun- 
tries there were freqxient conflicts, any of which 
might have been an excuse for war. The Turks 
took one small island after another in the Archi- 
pelago, the Venetian owners being unable to defend 
themselves. 

In 1537, Barbarossa prepared to conquer Corfu. 
Driven from her inaction, Venice joined an alliance 
with the Emperor and the Pope to fight the Sul- 
tan, who was in league with the French king. 
Although her allies did not furnish the support 
they had promised, she succeeded at first in expel- 
ling Barbarossa from Corfu. He took his revenge, 
however, in seizing several smaller islands, and as 
he could move swiftly, he easily harassed the Vene- 
tian armament, hampered by the cross-purposes of 
its allies. By 1540, when she had spent much and 
lost much, and despaired of receiving from Charles 
V the large aid he had pledged, she sued for peace. 
She secretly authorized her ambassador to agree as 
a last resort to cede Nauplia and Malvasia ; through 
treachery her instructions were whispered to the 
French ambassador at Venice, who communicated 
them to the Sultan ; and before granting peace, 



256 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

Solyman naturally insisted on the cession of those 
two cities. 

During the next thirty years the Republic, by 
swallowing provocations and by scattering apolo- 
gies, avoided open warfare with the Turk. Time 
was when she would have accepted the first hint of 
a challenge; now she consulted her weakness and 
was polite. The Turk knew her weakness too, and 
after he had glutted himself in Hungary and else- 
where, he turned to Venice in search of spoils. 
Solyman the Magnificent died in 1566 ; his son and 
successor, Selim the Toper, was the puppet of a 
Portuguese Jew, Nassi, on whom he conferred the 
title of Duke of Naxos. Although they thrust one 
quarrel after another at Venice, she declined to 
stir. Nassi goaded Selim on to seize Cyprus by 
telling him of the rare wines the island produced ; 
and Selim promised to make Nassi king of Cyprus 
as soon as it was theirs. So runs the legend. At 
any rate, the Grand Vizier hinted to the Venetian 
bailo at Constantinople that, as Cyprus had belonged 
to the Soldan of Cairo, whose realm had been con- 
quered by the Turks, it was now by right theirs. 
Bailo Barbarigo denied this claim : but the Turk 
was not to be stopped by a little historical slip ; 
and when an envoy soon after demanded at Venice 
the cession of Cyprus, and was answered that the 
Signory would defend it to the last ditch, war was 
unavoidable. 

The Venetians may well have had misgivings, 
for the total population of the Republic, including 



xii THE LOSS OF CYPRUS 257 

its dependencies, could not have exceeded two 
million souls. Cyprus itself was thought to num- 
ber only one hundred and seventy thousand. The 
Venetians had been great sailors, but never great 
soldiers, and their long employment of mercenaries 
tended, with their prosperity, to unfit them for war. 
Nevertheless, they prepared with old-time vigor for 
the encounter on which their own supremacy and 
the very existence of Christians throughout the 
Orient was believed to hang. They levied troops, 
equipped a fleet, and sent munitions to Cyprus. 
Some of their powerful nobles raised regiments at 
their own charge : Girolamo Martinengo mustered 
two thousand men in the Piazza of St. Mark. En- 
voys hurried westward to Portugal and eastward to 
Persia to seek allies. The King of Muscovy and 
the Sophy were besought to join Western Christen- 
dom in a supreme effort to crush the Moslem, 
whose further progress might mean the destruction 
of European civilization. These appeals bore little 
fruit. The world held its old opinion that, as Yen- 
ice chiefly was interested in Oriental commerce, 
she ought not to rely upon her neighbors to fight 
for her. And by this time the Keformation had 
so split up every Catholic country, that its first 
concern was to stamp out its religious enemies at 
home. The hatred of Papist for Protestant and of 
Protestant for Papist far exceeded the hatred of 
either for Mohammedans. Only Spain and the 
Pope promised aid. 

Cyprus itself, besides its small population, was 



258 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

not properly organized to furnish an effective army 
of defense. The feudal government, based on the 
Crusaders' Assizes, had been retained after Venice 
took the island. There were a few hundred nobles, 
a few thousand urban folk ; the rest, part Cypriots, 
part Copts and Armenians, were ill-treated serfs, 
with cause enough for hating their masters. 
Although the islanders must necessarily look to 
Venice for help against invasion, they nevertheless 
pushed forward their preparations as ably as could 
be expected with such material. 

In the early summer of 1570 the Venetian arma- 
ment, commanded by Girolamo Zane, sailed down 
the Adriatic to Zara, where it wasted several weeks. 
Thence it proceeded to Corfu and was joined by 
forty-nine Spanish galleys under Gian Andrea 
Doria and by twelve Papal galleys under Marcanto- 
nio Colonna. Disputes followed as to plans and 
instructions; and September had come before the 
fleet reached Candia. Meanwhile the Turks had 
captured several of the Cyprus seaports, and were 
besieging Nicosia and Famagosta. From Nicosia, 
Niccolo Dandolo sent forth desperate summons for 
help ; Bragadino, who commanded at Famagosta, 
was completely shut in ; and the first news he had 
of the fall of Nicosia was when Dandolo's head was 
thrown inside his lines by the Turks, who now 
massed all their forces against Famagosta. Braga- 
dino fought as long as food and powder lasted; 
then, at the agonized entreaties of his people, he 
capitulated (August 18, 1571). Mustapha, the 



xii THE LOSS OF CYPRUS 259 

Turkish general, offered what appeared to be reason- 
able terms, in allowing the citizens and the Italian 
troops to quit the island. But presently his mag- 
nanimous temper changed. He gave the town up 
to sack, and took a diabolical revenge on the Vene- 
tian commanders. He caused Lorenzo Tiepolo to 
be gibbeted, and Baglioni, Martinengo, and Querini 
to be hewn to pieces in his presence. Happy they, 
compared with the gallant Bragadino, who was 
first mutilated, then hoisted to the yardarm of the 
tallest galley, so that the Turks might deride him 
and the captive Venetians might be terrorized ; and 
after eleven days of unremitted tortures the brave 
Bragadino, whose courage never flinched, was flayed 
alive. He died clauntlessly, reciting the Miserere, 
and calling on Christ to support him. His skin 
was stuffed with straw, and after Mustapha's min- 
ions had heaped indignities on it to satiety, it was 
hung at the peak of a Turkish vessel, which carried 
it in triumph to Constantinople. The story of the 
noble defense of Famagosta, of its fall, of Mus- 
tapha's ferocity, and of the loss of Cyprus traveled 
slowly through Europe and stamped on the popular 
imagination a horror of the Turks which remains to 
this day. 

By a strange irony, these evil tidings went almost 
simultaneously with the news of the great Christian 
victory at Lepanto. In the autumn of 1570 the 
leaders of the allied fleet, which was to have relieved 
Cyprus, fell into a hopeless wrangle, and Doria, the 
Spanish admiral, withdrew. Not until the follow- 



260 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

ing summer was another agreement reached, and a 
larger fleet of 250 ships sailed from Messina in 
quest of the Turk. On October 7 they discovered 
him off Lepanto, at the entrance to the Gulf of 
Corinth, and after a five hours' battle, during which 
the result often wavered, the Christians won a 
magnificent victory. They lost 8000 men ; but they 
killed 30,000 of the Turks, took '5000 prisoners, 
and captured 117 galleys. Ali Pasha, the Turkish 
admiral, was slain during the fight ; Michael Cer- 
vantes, a soldier on one of the Spanish ships, lost 
his left arm, but he lived to write a masterpiece 
which has outlasted all the glories of that day and 
the grandeur of his Spanish kings. The chief 
credit of the victory belongs to Sebastiano Venier, 
the Venetian admiral. Don John of Austria, the 
bastard half-brother of the King of Spain, who 
commanded the Spanish fleet, behaved bravely 
and won military renown which survived his short 
career. Colonna, the Papal admiral, had his share 
of the honors. Ten days later, Venice was thrown, 
into an ecstasy of exultation over the news, and 
throughout Europe Christians were soon congratu- 
lating themselves that the Turk had received his 
deathblow. 

The battle of Lepanto was the principal sea fight 
between Actium and Trafalgar ; never was an im- 
mense victory so squandered. Venier's appeals 
could not make his allies budge. They refused to 
hurry to Constantinople and attack the Sultan be- 
fore he had time to repair his losses. While they 



xn THE LOSS OF CYPRUS 261 

were wintering inactive, Seliin was working night 
and day to create a new fleet ; so that by the fol- 
lowing summer (1572) he had 210 ships in commis- 
sion, and dared to meet his late victors on the sea. 
And even now they declined to give battle. Bit- 
terly did Giacorno Foscarini, Venier's successor as 
Venetian admiral, inveigh against an alliance which 
deprived him of his allies' aid and of his own ini- 
tiative. In the autumn the allied fleet disbanded. 
Knowing that she could not, single-handed, carry on 
the war, Venice signed a treaty with the Turks by 
which she agreed to pay 300,000 ducats' indemnity, 
besides a tribute of 1500 sequins a year for Zante. 
Seliin kept Cyprus (March 7, 1573). Little, indeed, 
had the battle of Lepanto crushed the Ottomite! 
In 1573 he, and not Venice, was the victor ; in 1683, 
he was still so powerful that his armies invested 
Vienna. The truth is that the task of withstand- 
ing the Turks was out of all proportion to the 
strength of Venice, and should have been shared by 
the entire Christian world. But the Crusading age 
was long past, and Europe was now convulsed by 
religious discords. 

The very year, 1572, when the allied fleet might 
have clinched the victory of Lepanto by one yet 
greater at Stamboul, saw the French Catholics mas- 
sacring the Huguenots on St. Bartholomew's Day, 
and the Spanish Catholics at the point of exter- 
minating the Protestants in the Low Countries. 
Venice, surviving from the Medieval World, found 
the Younger World too strong for her; but she 



262 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 



met it with a courage worthy of her great tradi- 
tions. The heroism of Bragadino and his com- 
rades at Famagosta, the generalship and bravery 
of Venier at Lepaiito, showed that the race which 
had produced Dandolos and Pisani and Stenos still 
bred true; yet no miracle of heroism could avail 
now. 

The loss of Cyprus and of one island after 
another in the ^Egean and Ionian archipelagoes 
laid bare the weakness of her colonial system, by 
which she assigned her lands to her patricians and 
generals to hold by a sort of feudal tenure, throw- 
ing on them the duty of preserving order. They 
got what they could from their fiefs, and their sur- 
plus products swelled the commerce of Venice. 
No other colonial system has been developed with 
less cost to the home government. But when an 
aggressive power like the Turkish invaded the 
colonies one by one, they had no means of effec- 
tively warding it off. They had depended on 
Venice for troops to put down a local revolution; 
the wars with Solyinan and with Selim proved that 
she could not protect them against a powerful in- 
vader. The system at last broke down ; but it had 
worked successfully for a longer time nearly four 
hundred years and at less cost than the colonial 
system of Rome or of Spain or of England. 

Thus, on the physical side, old Venice found her- 
self overmatched by the strength of the Younger 
World. She could no more escape from the mili- 
tary superiority of the Turks than from the effects 



xii THE LOSS OF CYPRUS 263 

of the discovery of America. Having made the 
trial and been worsted, she adjusted herself to the 
hateful conditions. She determined to keep peace 
with her enemy against all provocations, so that 
she might hold her remaining possessions, espe- 
cially Candia, as long as possible. Yet it was 
evident that, on the sea as on Terra Firma, she 
maintained her control by sufferance. 



CHAPTER XIII 

SARPI 

LESS dramatic, but hardly less vital, was the war 
which the venerable Republic waged with the Ro- 
man Church during the last half of the sixteenth 
century. The Roman Church, too, found herself 
strangely out of place in the Younger World. The 
religious revolution which swept over Europe at 
the Reformation completed a process which bears 
a striking analogy to the political reconstruction 
which had come about somewhat earlier. Through- 
out the Middle Age, Roman Catholicism was, in 
theory, at least, the common faith of Western 
Christendom; and the Holy Roman Empire was, 
not less strongly in theory but much more feebly 
in practice, the common political bond. But the 
constituents of the Empire began to break away 
from it and to assert their independence sooner 
than the constituents of the Roman Church broke 
away from Rome. Men are warriors and politicians 
before they are theologians. The concentration of 
many small states into a few strong nations, with 
the intensifying of political consciousness which 
that implied ; the substitution of international for 
interstate and intercity policies; the growth of 
264 



CHAP. XIII SARPI 265 

national languages, arts, and literatures, banished 
forever the ideal of political unity as embodied in 
the Holy Roman Empire. 

Similarly, the cropping out of heresies, the Great 
Schism, and finally the Reformation, shattered the 
ideal of religious unity as embodied by Roman Ca- 
tholicism. The new units of combination were sects, 
some large, some small, holding all sorts of doctrines, 
but broadly classifiable as Romish or Protestant. 
These new religious combinations did not corre- 
spond to the new political states, although in the 
main the Germanic countries adopted Protestantism 
and the Latin countries held fast to Catholicism. 
If there had been no political interference spurred 
on by sectarian fanaticism, it is possible that there 
would have been a large minority of Protestants 
in Spain, of Huguenots in France, and of Roman 
Catholics in England and Holland. But political 
rulers used the fanaticism of their subjects as the 
most powerful weapon for strengthening their own 
dynasties. The more one studies the Reformation, \ 
the deeper becomes one's impression that political 
and not religious motives directed it. 

The Roman Curia, which scoffed at Luther's 
first attack on Tetzel, the indulgence peddler, as a 
" mere monkish quarrel," had come by the middle of 
the century to recognize the imminent peril which 
threatened its supremacy. The Reformation had 
spread everywhere north of the Alps ; several 
countries had seceded to it ; others were wavering ; 
and some of those which remained Catholic might 



266 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

set up a national church and thereby cease to be 
Roman. Never was the sagacity which has char- 
acterized the politicians of the Curia so conspicu- 
ous as at that crisis. At the Council of Trent, 
far from allowing any whisper of compromise or 
conciliation, they reaffirmed their dogmas in their 
most relentless form. They knew well that those 
who believed at all would believe much as readily 
as little. Protestants deny the Romish claim of 
infallibility ; yet each Protestant sect virtually as- 
sumes that it is itself infallible. The position taken 
by the Council of Trent was logically invulnerable: 
the right of the individual soul to worship God 
without the interposition of ecclesiastical functions 
must forever be anathema to a church which holds 
that God has revealed and intrusted to it the only 
scheme of salvation. Persecution is the legitimate 
child of infallibility. The heretic must be perse- 
cuted out of his heresy, that his soul may be saved 
and that he may not, by his example, corrupt the 
faithful. 

By the reassertion of its dogmas and by persecu- 
tion, the Roman Church strove to check the ravages 
of the Reformation. The virus of Catholicism had 
been most copiously secreted in the Spaniards, and 
as they dominated European politics during most 
of the sixteenth century, it was inevitable that that 
virus, rendered still more potent by passing through 
the Spanish nature, should infect all Catholic ac- 
tion. Nor was it by chance that the founder of the 
Jesuits should be a Spaniard. The first move of 



xra SARPI 267 

the politicians of the Curia was to recover, chiefly 
by the arms of Spain, the territory which had gone 
over to the Protestants. When they failed in the 
Low Countries and in England, and the line of de- 
marcation between Catholics and Protestants was 
clearly drawn, the Curia put into practice that H 
policy which it has not yet abandoned of subtly 
controlling the secular concerns of Catholic coun- 
tries. If the Reformation had deprived it of half 
of its religious subjects, it would recoup by dou- 
bling its hold on the half that remained faithful ; 
and the plea that in so usurping the Church was 
simply performing its duty had a logical justifica- 
tion. If the supreme business of man on earth is 
to fit himself for heaven, how could Mother Church 
neglect so to influence secular affairs as to make 
them also stepping-stones to heaven ? In this way 
did an institution, which, like the Venetian Repub- 
lic, had matured in the Middle Age, prepare to 
defend itself against the hostile conditions of the 
Modern World : resolutely branding as accursed 
every agent of human progress, striving to cramp 
the human race forever in the thirteenth-century 
mould. 

Venice, as we have seen, consistently maintained 
her independence from Rome, even in the days 
when Alexander III humbled Frederick Barbarossa, 
and Innocent III made vassals of the Catholic 
kings. In St. Mark, Venice had an apostle-patron 
of equal rank with St. Peter ; and in the Patriarch 
of Grado (who transferred his see to the capital in 



268 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

1445) she had a little pope of her own. But while 
she held herself free ecclesiastically, she accepted 
without demur the Romish religion. Few people 
were more devout than hers ; few were less pietistic. 
She nurtured neither doubters nor fanatics. Im- 
memorial intercourse with Byzantines and Mo- 
hammedans had taught her tolerance. Prosperity 
made her cheerful in her worship. She never 
mixed spiritual and temporal business. In 1309 she 
underwent a Papal interdict because of Ferrara; 
and although she consented two years later to ask 
for pardon, this in no wise changed her general at- 
titude of ecclesiastical independence. She insisted 
that the Patriarch and bishops must be Venetian 
subjects, elected by the clergy and the Senate, and 
confirmed by the Pope. The lesser clergy were 
chosen by the clergy and the people an instance 
of congregational democracy. In judicial matters 
the Republic at first allowed the ecclesiastical 
courts to try criminal cases in which laymen were 
involved; then by the Concordat of 1344 it was 
agreed that if a cleric were the offender against 
a layman, he should be tried by the bishop ; if a 
cleric were the plaintiff against a layman, the case 
went to the civil court. Gradually, however, the 
state came more and more to exercise jurisdiction 
over all criminal and civil causes. Willingly or 
not, the Popes acquiesced, because they were too 
wary to risk, except for a great stake, a rupture 
with the haughty Republic, which, in any collision, 
threatened to appeal from the Pope to a council. 



xm SARPI 269 

Many questions were regulated by custom and not 
by a definite agreement between the Curia and the 
Signory an uncertainty which left leeway for 
whichever of the two happened to be the more 
powerful to encroach. 

Not until the League of Cambrai did Venice sub- 
mit to the supremacy of Rome. When her armies 
had been routed, her provinces torn from her, and 
her very existence seemed to be in jeopardy, she 
bought peace from Julius II by accepting the fol- 
lowing grievous terms : she renounced her appeal 
to a future council and declared the Pope's excom- 
munication to be just ; she promised to levy no more 
tithes or other taxes from the clergy; to refrain 
from interfering in ecclesiastical nominations; to 
allow the freedom of the Gulf to Papal subjects ; 
to promote no undertaking against the Pope; not 
to give asylum to Papal rebels or refugees ; not to 
meddle in the affairs of Ferrara ; and to compen- 
sate monasteries and ecclesiastical foundations for 
their losses. The very day (February 15, 1509- 
10) when the Venetian Signory submitted to 
these humiliating conditions, the Council of Ten 
recorded a protest that the compact, having been 
wrung from them by force, was null and void a 
stupendous example of the guile which was then 
everywhere practiced, and nowhere more shame- 
lessly than in the Papal Curia. 

The Reformation, by giving Rome new excuses 
for extending her influence, complicated the situa- 
tion. Under the pretext of guarding Catholics from 



270 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

the contagion of heretics, Rome converted the In- 
quisition into an instrument for strengthening the 
Pope's hold ; and she let loose the Jesuits, to under- 
mine in more reptilian ways the patriotism of the 
regular clergy and the independence of the lay citi- 
zens. The Signory could not be fooled in matters 
purely political, but it could hardly deny that the 
Church was the proper judge of heresy, even though 
it suspected that, under cover of religion, the Curia 
was seeking its own political advantage. Venice 
resisted as best she could. 

To prevent "all the real property of this city 
from falling into the hands of the ecclesiastics," 
she decreed that nobody should bequeath to them 
the income of such property for more than two 
years (December 31, 1536). Later, she forbade the 
sale of lands and buildings to ecclesiastics without 
the Senate's permission. She taxed churchmen. 
She frowned on the erection of new churches. Hav- 
ing no immediate interest in the religious wars be- 
yond the Alps, and being by nature tolerant, she 
gave a lodging to persons whom the Curia did not 
always approve of. On the whole, however, her 
relations with Home continued friendly until after 
the battle of Lepanto. In 1577 Gregory XIII sent 
the Golden Rose, the special mark of pontifical 
favor, to Sebastiano Venier on his election as doge. 

With Gregory's successors there came coolness, 
recrimination, conflict. By 1600 the Catholic Re- 
action had shown its ability to check the spread 
of Protestantism. It no longer feared a surprise. 



xin SARPI 271 

The Papal politicians had grown expert in using 
the weapons originally forged against Protestant 
heretics, to secure wealth and power for the Pope 
in Catholic countries. The baleful alliance between 
Spain and the Papacy was in full vigor. Out of 
Spain had come the Inquisition, the armies of 
Charles V and Philip II, Loyola and his Company 
of Jesus the stanchest supports of Rome in her 
struggle with Protestantism : no wonder that the 
Spanish virus poisoned her system. And although 
Spain, after the destruction of her Armada in 1588, 
was declining from leadership in Europe, she pre- 
ponderated in the Italian Peninsula, where she 
owned the Duchy of Milan and the Kingdom of 
Naples, and dictated the policy of the Holy See. 
By destroying the Venetian Republic, Spain would 
possess its provinces on Terra Firma ; by humbling 
it, the Roman Curia would at last gain the upper 
hand over a people who had haughtily resisted 
Papal intrusion and had been unseemiugly hospi- 
table to religious suspects. 

The Curia moved first by reviving an ancient 
quarrel over the claim of the bishops of Ceneda to 
exercise temporal power in that diocese without, or 
against, the Signory's sanction. The taxation of 
churchmen, the ordinance permitting the visitation 
of monasteries, the laws against mortmain, lenience 
toward heretics, the interference of the state in 
ecclesiastical appointments, the judicial system in 
which the secular courts had jurisdiction over 
clerics, supplied causes enough for fresh exaspera- 



272 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

tion to a Curia in search of a quarrel. The Repub- 
lic was inclined to be courteous, even compliant, 
where her temporal authority was not attacked. 
When Clement VIII complained against the taxing 
of the Brescian clergy for the fortifications, the 
Doge replied that it was reasonable that the clergy 
should contribute its share for the protection which 
it received. When, later, the Pope demanded that 
the English Ambassador, Sir Henry Wotton, should 
be expelled as a heretic, the Doge firmly refused. 

The election of Camillo Borghese as Pope Paul V, 
in 1605, hurried on a crisis. He had been elected 
by the consent, perhaps by the doubloons, of Spain, 
and he soon fell in heartily with the Spanish policy. 
His prejudice against Venice is illustrated by a 
conversation he had, as Cardinal, with Leonardo 
Donato, the Venetian envoy. "If I were Pope," 
said Borghese, " I would excommunicate the Si- 
gnory at the first opportunity." " And if I were 
Doge/' replied Douato, "I would laugh at your 
excommunication." Paul had not been Pope long 
before he carried out his threat. Two ecclesias- 
tics, Abbot Brandolin and Canon Saraceni, were 
arrested for abominable crimes, and being Venetian 
citizens they would naturally be tried and pun- 
ished by the secular courts. Their guilt was un- 
questioned, and the Signory contended that it had 
full jurisdiction. But Paul thought that he saw 
here his chance to win a final victory for the Church 
over the State. He sent two briefs to the Siguory, 
demanding in one the instant surrender of the ac- 



xm SARPI 273 

cused to the ecclesiastical authorities, and in the 
other the rescinding of the laws against the erec- 
tion of new churches and against bequests to 
ecclesiastics. 

To Donato, who had just been elected Doge, the 
Papal Nuncio handed the latter brief ; several weeks 
afterward, he delivered the other. The Signory, 
understanding the gravity of the situation, appointed 
Fra Paolo Sarpi consulting theologian to the Repub- 
lic, at an annual salary of two hundred ducats. 
Three professors of civil and canon laws Graziani, 
Ottelio, and Pellegrini were summoned from the 
University of Padua to assist him. 

Sarpi is among the world's great men, and so 
long as mankind reveres its chief benefactors, 
those who widen its liberty and exalt its righteous- 
ness, he will have the gratitude of posterity. 
Born at Venice, on August 14, 1552, he was a deli- 
cate, study-loving boy. When only fourteen, he 
entered the Servite Order ; before he was of age, he 
was professor of theology and reader in canon law 
and casuistry at Mantua. In 1574 he went to Mi- 
lan and became a favorite with Cardinal Carlo Bor- 
romeo, in spite of whose patronage he was charged 
with heresy because he could not find the " complete 
Trinity" in the first verse of Genesis! He re- 
turned to Venice, to teach philosophy in the Ser- 
vite Monasteiy at St. Fosca ; rose to be Provincial 
of the Order, and made on its business several jour- 
neys to Rome. There his character was highly 
esteemed, even by his opponents ; so that, when a 



274 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

slanderer printed a libelous biography of him, Car- 
dinal Bellarmine said to the Pope : " Holy Father, 
this book is a tissue of lies. I know Fra Paolo, and 
I know him as a man of blameless habits. If we 
were to allow such calumnies to be published, the 
dishonor would be wholly ours." Later, Bellar- 
mine warned Sarpi of plots against his life. In 
1597 he settled in the Servite Monastery at Venice, 
and seldom thereafter quitted the city. 

If we except his younger contemporary, Francis 
Bacon, he was the most learned man of his time. 
He had mastered Greek, Hebrew, Chaldee, mathe- 
matics, medicine, anatomy, and botany, besides 
philosophy and theology. He practiced, not less 
than Bacon, the inductive method. He had that 
passion for truth " to know things exactly as 
they happened " which is the soul of modern 
science. "Truth," he said, "makes the supersti- 
tious more obstinate." "I never dare to deny any- 
thing on the score of impossibility," he remarked, 
" knowing very well the infinite variety of the 
works of Nature and of God." He made many 
original suggestions and inventions, but was care- 
less of seeking credit for them. "Let us imitate 
God and Nature," he used to say ; " they give, they 
do not lend." Shut up in his convent, he might be 
remembered in our age by only a few as the histo- 
rian of the Council of Trent, had not the rupture 
between Venice and the Eoman Curia called him to 
fill the most conspicuous post in Europe. 

For the first time since the Reformation that 



xin SARPI 275 

Curia, instigated doubtless by Spanish advisers, 
resolved to usurp temporal rights in a Catholic 
state. Sarpi did not underrate the peril nor the 
principles at stake. He belonged to that noble 
band of Catholics over whom Dante, like an eagle, 
soars, who have protested from generation to gen- 
eration against the worldly policy which perverted 
the Roman Church from a spiritual to a corrupt 
political institution. He saw in the Inquisition, in 
the Jesuits, in the Index, new organs put forth by 
the Papacy to extend its mundane ambitions. As 
a lover of virtue, he grieved at the injury this 
would work to the Church herself. He foresaw the 
depths of ignorance, superstition, intolerance, and 
cruelty into which the Catholic nations must sink 
if the Roman Curia prevailed. Resolutely he ac- 
cepted the summons of Venice to advise her in this 
crisis. For once, certainly, Fortune found the indis- 
pensable man to do a world-broad task. Sarpi's en- 
dowments were threefold. He surpassed all other 
Catholic theologians of his time even Bellarmine 
in knowledge of ecclesiastical law. He excelled 
in ability to state his points briefly, clearly, unan- 
swerably. He had a large, poised nature, cheerful, 
modest, courageous, invincible, which fitted him to 
support the long strain of such a conflict and to 
hearten his countrymen. 

By his advice the Signory replied to the Pope's 
brief concerning the accused clerics that Popes 
Gregory XII, Paul II, Innocent VIII, Sixtus IV, 
Alexander VI, Clement VII, and Paul III had by 



276 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

special bulls confirmed the right of the state to try 
such causes. He urged that the state had likewise 
the right to make laws to restrict the holding of 
property by ecclesiastics a right derived not 
merely from custom but from divine decree ; for 
God intended the ruler or state to be as independent 
in temporal affairs as the pontiff was in spiritual 
affairs. Paul V was angry at this reply, and said 
to the Venetian cardinals who urged moderation on 
him, " Your speeches stink of heresy." But even 
so, he might not have taken the final leap if he had 
not been egged on by Spanish instigation and by 
the majority of the cardinals, who, in consistory, 
vied with one another in denouncing the Venetians. 
Cardinal Baronio outdid them all. The ministry 
of Peter, he said, has two parts, one is to feed 
the lambs, the other is to kill and eat them ; and 
their slaughter is not cruel, but an act of piety, 
because, while by it they lose their bodies, they 
save their souls. In justice to Paul V we must 
remember that this was the sort of counsel he 
received from the little ring which controlled the 
Papal policy. It was counsel which simply in- 
flamed the already megalomaniac ideas he held of 
pontifical powers. The triumphs of Hildebrand 
and of Innocent III would not let him sleep. He 
issued a monitory, warning Venice that unless she 
submitted within twenty -four days he would place 
her under the ban. 

Venice was not to be terrorized. Suspecting that 
the Spanish might seize this opportunity to attack 



xin SAKPI 277 

her, she increased her forces on the west and south. 
To render ineffectual the Interdict, which was issued 
punctually, she forbade its publication in her do- 
minions, and threatened to punish any of the clergy 
who allowed it to interrupt the usual religious 
offices. One recalcitrant priest found a gibbet set 
up before his door, and took the hint. Another 
remarked that he should act according as the Holy 
Ghost inspired him; but when he was told that the 
Holy Ghost had already inspired the Ten to hang 
all who disobeyed, he, too, had a change of heart. 
The Jesuits, Theatines, Reformed Franciscans, and 
Capuchins prudently slipped away ; but even with- 
out the government's strict measures the great 
body of the Venetian clergy would have been 
sturdily patriotic, and, if there had been need, 
many other bodies would have imitated the monks 
of Chiaravalle, who offered the Senate one hundred 
thousand ducats toward the war which they 
thought must follow. 

The Interdict went into operation about May 10, 
1606, but a stranger in the Venetian Republic would 
hardly have been aware of it. The churches were 
open as usual, and baptisms, marriages, and funerals 
were solemnized with the usual rites. The holy 
festivals were celebrated with increased pomp. 
Venice intended that her people and the world 
should see that she did not confound religious 
affairs with secular, and that in her worship she 
was loyally Catholic. Pope Paul was greatly per- 
turbed. His Xuucio brought back to him the remon- 



278 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

strance of the Doge, who had said flatly : " We 
hold your excommunication as naught. See how- 
much your resolution amounts to, and how much 
would be left you if others were to follow our ex- 
ample." The Pope had lost much sleep over the 
quarrel. Despite his brave show of masterfulness, 
he listened for the advice of one cardinal and of an- 
other. The easy rejoinder that Venice was atheis- 
tical was, of course, made ; but it persuaded no one. 
The penmen of the Curia set about undermining 
the Venetian arguments. Sarpi and his colleagues 
met them point by point. Volunteer pamphleteers 
rushed into print on both sides. The Curialists, 
although they had Bellarmine for counsel, fell back 
on personal abuse, and as they recognized in Sarpi 
their chief antagonist, they tried to discredit both 
his morals and his orthodoxy. But Brother Paul 
cared nothing for the attacks on himself. He knew 
that he was fighting the world's cause, and he 
fought it dispassionately, but with immense vigor. 
He reprinted two forgotten treatises in which the 
famous doctor, Gerson, declared that the pretension 
that the Pope was a god, or had all power in heaven 
and earth, was absurd, and that resistance to Papal 
injustice was justified. There are occasions, said the 
magisterial Parisian, when to submit to Papal ex- 
communication " would be the patience of an ass and 
the timidity of a hare or a fool." He further trav- 
ersed the dictum of St. Gregory, that even an un- 
just sentence imposed by the Pope is to be dreaded. 
Gerson was a theologian whom the Curia could not 



xiii SARPI 279 

conveniently dismiss as a heretic. Another pam- 
phlet, by Giovanni Marsilio, pointed out that since 
Jesus Christ never exercised temporal power on 
earth, he could never have transmitted it to Peter 
and his successors ; that the jurisdiction of the 
metaphorical " keys " is purely spiritual ; that the 
best authorities agree that ecclesiastics owe their 
secular privileges to the benevolence of rulers, and 
not to divine right; and that consequently the 
Interdict against Venice was illegal. Marsilio's 
pamphlet was condemned by the Holy Office which, 
not to waste time, added that all other works con- 
taining heretical, erroneous, and scandalous propo- 
sitions, though still unwritten or unpublished, were 
damned in advance. At this Fra Paolo, who had a 
keen sense of humor, laughed, saying, "Then if 
we had taken the thirteenth chapter of Romans, 
and given it the title Rights of the Venetian Re- 
public, by a bizarre decree of the Inquisition, St. 
Paul would become the author of heretical, errone- 
ous, and scandalous opinions." 

Fra Paolo gave the full measure of his powers 
in his Treatise on the Interdict, which circulated 
rapidly through Italy, and, crossing the Alps, 
was translated into French and German. The 
Inquisition at once condemned it and his other 
works to be burnt, and summoned him to Eome, 
under pain of excommunication, to stand trial 
for heresy. He did not go, and the Venetian 
Senate, to display its approval of him, publicly 
thanked him for his services, and, in spite of 



280 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

his reluctance, increased his stipend to four hun- 
dred ducats. 

Meanwhile summer had passed and the autumn 
was far advanced without any sign of reconcilia- 
tion. Venice had convinced the world that a Catho- 
lic people could live for six months under a Papal 
interdict without suffering any interruption in wor- 
ship, in commerce, in business, in foreign relations 
(except with the Curia), or in domestic welfare. She 
had forever destroyed the prestige of the Kornish 
taboo which, stripped of its theological wraps, is in 
essence the same as the taboo the primitive South 
Sea cannibal draws round persons and places. She 
had proved the righteousness of her position by 
argument, by dignified conduct, and by religious 
decorum. Instead of vituperating, she gave reasons, 
and allowed the Koman pamphlets to be distributed 
freely in her empire, although her own pamphlets 
were burnt by the hangman, and their readers im- 
prisoned, in the Papal states. Venice had estab- 
lished once for all the divorce between Church and 
State, and, more important still, she had shown how, 
when the Church reached out after secular powers, 
she could be ignominiously beaten. 

At Rome, the failure of the Interdict, although 
unacknowledged, was bitterly felt. The Curia had 
tried every weapon in its armory threat, denun- 
ciation, abuse, calumny, curse in vain. It had 
presumed to wield God Almighty's terrors, but 
they did not materialize. It had called spirits 
from the vasty deep, but they would not come. If 



xin SARPI 281 

a pontiff summons all the world to see him coax 
down thunderbolts out of a clear sky, and no 
thunderbolts fall, how does he differ from a dis- 
credited rainmaker, or from the trickster who pre- 
tends to cause a shower of meteors by whistling ? 
The only safe rule for theocrats who claim to be 
partners with the Supernal Powers is never to 
allow themselves to be put to the test of bring- 
ing those Powers into action. During the months 
of increasing mortification, this was dawning on 
Paul V, who had entered on the struggle with an 
exaggerated idea of Papal omnipotence and a natu- 
ral desire to extend the jurisdiction of the Curia. 
He had commanded the Venetians to call Wrong, 
Eight, and they had refused : he then pronounced 
a blight on them in this life and damnation in 
eternity ; but this had so little affected them here, 
that they might well assume that it would be 
equally impotent hereafter. If they could prosper 
thus without Rome for half a year, why might they 
not cut adrift from Rome forever ? The charge 
that they were heretics, Calvinists, Lutherans, de- 
ceived nobody. What if the other Catholic nations, 
taking example from Venice, should decide that they 
too would rid themselves of Papal domineering? 

The contest had been everywhere eagerly watched. 
Polemics in each country sprang up to engage in 
the controversy. But monarchs without exception 
hoped that Venice would win, because they recog- 
nized that she was fighting their cause against the 
Curia. Were she to lose, the insatiate Papal ambi- 



282 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

tion would usurp secular authority in Spain, in 
France, in the Empire, in Hungary. Nevertheless, 
the Catholic powers did not wish to see the dead- 
lock prolonged, as out of it there might issue they 
knew not what political disaster. They instructed 
their ambassadors at Koine and Venice to urge a 
reconciliation. Henry IV, of France, who was 
most solicitous, perhaps because he had most to 
fear from a rekindling of religious discord among 
his subjects, undertook to negotiate. But the 
Republic declined to accept any terms which sug- 
gested that she had been wrong. The parleying 
dragged on from November to April, each party 
skirmishing to save its dignity. The Pope in- 
sisted that the Signory should withdraw its pro- 
test before he removed the ban ; but in the end he 
had to give in. The Republic consented to hand 
over the two prisoners, who had been the immedi- 
ate cause of the controversy, to the French am- 
bassador " as a mark of gratitude to Henry IV for 
his good offices," but it stated that by this transfer 
it intended in no wise to prejudice the authority 
which it claimed to try ecclesiastics. The envoy 
consigned the ruffians to the Pope's agents. In 
the matter of bequests and buildings, the Republic 
conceded nothing, but she consented to the return 
of the exiled religious orders except the Jesuits. 
June, 1607, had come round before the restoration 
of peace. 

Thus ended the Interdict of Paul V. The victory 
which Venice won surpassed in lasting effects most 



xin SARPI 283 

of the victories which have been won for human 
progress on the battlefield. In some respects it 
was more significant than the Reformation ; for it 
was natural that when large bodies of Christians 
broke away from Roman Catholicism, they should 
keep out Papal interference from their temporal 
affairs. But Venice was the first to demonstrate 
that a Catholic state could maintain its indepen- 
dence in secular matters, in the face of the most 
awful terrors which the Church could conjure 
against it. The interdicts of 1309 and 1509 had 
brought the Republic to terms because they were 
backed up by superior physical force ; the interdict 
of 1606 failed because Paul V had no such backing. 
In other words, the interdict, which pretended to 
be a spiritual weapon, was proved worthless unless 
it were accompanied by the common material 
weapon, as ancient as Cain's brute force. More- 
over, by 1606 there had grown up a public opinion 
so far purged of superstition, that it demanded 
even from the Pope tangible proof of the justice of 
his claims. 

Venice had fought the battle against clerical en- 
croachment, a battle which Catholic monarchs have 
had to fight over and over again since 1607. The 
blight which overtook Spain, the frightful moral 
and political leprosy which infected Xaples under 
the Bourbons, the senile gangrene of which the 
Papal- states were slowly rotting down to 1870, 
show what happens to countries where Clericals 
insinuate their way into the schools, the law courts, 



284 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

and the council chambers. Sarpi did his work so 
thoroughly that his arguments will always be the 
best weapons for any state whose rights are invaded 
by ecclesiastical usurpers of whatever creed. 

Beaten in the open, the Jesuits plotted secretly 
to be avenged on the Servite friar. No proof can 
be given, of course, that their conspiracy was re- 
vealed to the Pope, although if it had been, there 
is little reason to suppose that he would have 
frowned upon it. The massacre of St. Bartholomew 
and the murder of William of Orange were too 
frankly rejoiced over in the Vatican to permit the 
belief that the assassination of Sarpi would not 
have been winked at. As he was returning to his 
convent on October 25, 1607, three villains laid upon 
him and his attendants, left him for dead, and 
escaped. He was taken to his cell, apparently 
dying ; but his characteristic humor did not desert 
him. Asking to see the dagger with which he had 
been stabbed, he fingered its point and said, " I 
recognize the Eoman style" Thanks to his 'com- 
posure and to devoted nursing, he recovered. The 
Senate passed a law making any attempt on his 
person an act of treason, and for his safety it 
besought him to remove to a palace at St. Mark's, 
and to accept a bodyguard ; but he would not quit 
S. Fosca, and consented only to the protection of a 
covered way from the cloister to his gondola. His 
assassins took refuge in the Papal states, where 
they were welcomed with rewards. The Curia set 
subtler snares for him and for his associates in the 



xra SARPI 285 

campaign of the Interdict, by holding out promises 
of forgiveness and promotion if they would go to 
Rome. Sarpi himself was too wary to be caught ; 
but a Franciscan, Manfredi, went with a safe- 
conduct. After he had been allowed to live in 
Rome undisturbed for nearly two years, he was 
suddenly seized by the Holy Office, condemned, 
hanged, and burnt. When Sarpi heard of it, he 
said laconically, "I know not what judgment to 
form : a safe-conduct and a pyre." 

All efforts to lure him out of Venice failed, as did 
other plots against his life. He lived cloistered 
but unceasingly busy ; in constant consultation on 
matters of state ; studious throughout the whole 
domain of learning; experimenting in science, 
writing his history, and fulfilling without repose 
his religious duties. Amid the veneration of all 
classes of his countrymen he grew old. Seldom 
has a world-hero enjoyed like him so unclouded a 
popularity. His deserts were great, but without 
his great nature, they might not have saved him 
from envy. In their appreciation of Sarpi, as in 
their devotion to Daniel Manin two centuries later, 
the Venetians revealed the inherent nobleness of 
their race. 

All through 1622 Sarpi's health broke visibly, 
and with the coming of winter, a mortal illness 
gained on him apace. He lost appetite, strength, 
sleep; and of his many intellectual interests, he 
held only to mathematics. Yet he would not rest 
from his official work. " My office is to serve and 



286 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

not to live," he said ; " and every one dies at his 
work." " Popes die ; shall not I, a friar, die too ? " 
Often he would say to his assistants, " Let us make 
haste, for we are at the end of the day's stint." 
Nothing troubled his elemental serenity; for him 
time and eternity were one. 

On January 13, 1623, although he seemed to be 
dying, he persisted in rising and in dressing him- 
self. When the convent cook urged him to take a 
meat broth, in spite of its being a fast day, he said 
playfully, " Fra Cosimo, is this the way you treat 
your friends, causing them to spoil their Fridays ? " 
The next day he said to the brothers, who could not 
hold back their grief, " I have consoled you as 
much as I could ; now it is your turn to keep me 
cheerful." The Senate sent for Fra Fulgenzio, 
Sarpi's chosen disciple, and asked for news. " He 
is at the last gasp," replied Fra Fulgenzio. " And 
his mind ? " " As clear as if he were well." The 
Senate accordingly submitted in writing three im- 
portant questions, on which they wished to "have 
their dying adviser's opinions, and he dictated the 
replies. When the physician told him that the end 
was near, he smiled and said, "Blessed be God; 
what pleases Him pleases me : with His aid, we will 
perform well even this last act." From time to 
time he became unconscious. "Come let us go 
whither God calls us ; " he was heard murmuring 
amid his prayers. Or his thought would revert to 
his chief earthly concern : " Let us go to St. Mark's, 
for it is late. ... I have much to do ! " Hearing 



xm SAKPI 287 

the bell strike eight, he called out, "It is eight 
o'clock. Hurry if you wish to give me what the 
doctor ordered." And when the muscatel was 
brought, he sipped it and put it away in disgust. 
A little later, he called for Fra Fulgenzio, em- 
braced and kissed him, and bade him go : " Away ! 
Stay here no longer to see me in this state it is 
not right ! Go you to sleep, and I will go to God 
from whom we are come." Fra Fulgenzio obeyed ; 
but in a little while he returned with the other friars, 
who knelt by the bedside and repeated the prayers 
for the dying. Fra Paolo whispered the words after 
them, strove to cross his hands over his breast, and 
fixed his eyes on a crucifix. Just at the end he 
exclaimed, " Esto perpetual May she endure for- 
ever ! " True Venetian that he was, his last 
thought was of Venice. (January 15, 1623.) 

His passing caused a national bereavement. The 
Senate ordered a state funeral in his honor, and 
bade their ambassadors abroad to report Sarpi's 
death to the monarchs of Europe. A memorial 
bust was decreed, but when the Papal Nuncio an- 
nounced that the Curia would regard this as an 
affront, the Senate, remembering that Urban VIII, 
who was now Pope, as Cardinal Barberini had de- 
clared that " whoever would assassinate Sarpi would 
deserve God's grace," timidly let the project drop. 
To stir up another feud with Rome over something 
unessential, seemed foolish. And after all, as Renier 
Zeno wisely reminded them, Sarpi's monument was 
imperishably written in the annals of Venice. 



288 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

The enmity of Paul V and the Interdict have 
usually been regarded as episodes in the long at- 
tempt of Spain to destroy the Venetian Republic. 
But for Venice and the doughty Dukes of Savoy, 
the Spanish supremacy would have overlapped the 
Peninsula. Spanish influences controlled the Curia 
and drove it, under the plea of religion, into its 
conflict with Venice. Sarpi called the league of the 
Curia and the Spaniards Diacatholicon ; as if the 
wholesome and beautiful spirit of Catholicism had 
been distilled away, leaving only a venom, which 
manifested itself in Jesuitry, in the Inquisition, in 
mundane ambition, and in corrupt politics. Venice 
lived in dread of this secret league. When Spain 
attached Charles Emanuel she subsidized him ; and 
at every point she had spies on the alert to give 
warning of danger. She knew that the Duke of 
Ossuna, the Spanish Viceroy of Naples, would miss 
no chance to injure her, and that Don Pedro de 
Toledo, the Spanish Governor at Milan, would 
march into her territory at the first signal. She 
did not at first suspect that the Spanish envoy in 
her own city, the Marquis of Bedinar, was the head 
of the conspiracy against her. Spies breed traitors, 
if they be not different aspects of the same base- 
ness. Jacques Pierre, a French corsair, who had 
been in Ossuna's pay, began to whisper to the 
Venetian ambassadors at Rome and at Naples hints 
of a great plot, and protestations of his own desire 
to serve the Republic. Cautious at first, the ambas- 
sadors finally concluded that, whether his story 



xra SARPI 289 

were true or not, it would be well to employ Pierre, 
who forthwith went to Venice and quietly gathered 
round him a coterie of similar adventurers. They 
held the most secret communication with the Mar- 
quis of Bedmar, and with Ossuna and Toledo, who 
fell into the trap. They planned that on Ascen- 
sion Day, 1618, when the whole city had gone to 
witness the Marriage of the Adriatic, the conspira- 
tors should blow up the Arsenal, seize the Ducal 
Palace and other public buildings, plunder the 
Mint, start fires in all directions, and then slay the 
holiday-makers as they returned panic-stricken from 
the Lido. Some eighteen hundred soldiers were 
said to be enrolled; a fleet of Neapolitan ships, 
laden with Ossuna's troops, was to appear at the 
proper moment and deal the finishing stroke. 
Nothing seemed easier. 

But on April 9 the Ten received an anonymous 
telltale letter. Shortly afterward, an informer put 
them on the track of the ringleaders, and one 
morning in May, Venetians wondered who the three 
wretches were, dangling from the gibbet in the Piaz- 
zetta. The low inns were quickly emptied of their 
dregs, who knew at that first arrest that their 
game was up, and rushed landward or seaward to 
save themselves. When the great plot leaked out, 
Bedniar, the Spanish ambassador, fearing an out- 
burst of popular rage, although the Senate set a 
guard about his palace, withdrew to Milan. As the 
details came to be understood, Venice vibrated be- 
tween consternation and wrath. The government 



290 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

would gladly have heeded the general demand for 
retribution, but it realized that proof of a con- 
spiracy to which a foreign ambassador was a party 
is hard to establish. Sarpi, when consulted, advised 
that " a prudent silence shall be maintained, for they 
can never publish to the world the particulars of a 
plot which exists only in the intention of its pro- 
moters, and has reached no overt act." Even so, 
Europe showed how it regarded the Spaniards by 
believing that the plot was a fact. The Gunpowder 
Plot in England was too recent for men to have 
forgotten the depths to which Romish and Spanish 
malevolence would burrow. 

The worst symptom of the Bedmar conspiracy 
was the unearthing of a small number of nobles 
willing to join foreigners in an attempt to destroy 
their country. Whether it were disaffection due to 
envy of the dominant party in the oligarchy, or 
poverty, which laid them open to Spanish gold, the 
existence of even a few score traitors indicated an 
ominous decay in patriotism. The ever vigilant 
Ten redoubled their watchfulness, and succeeded, 
by their network of spies, police, and bravi, in bring- 
ing all the traitorous purposes to naught. In 1620 
they learned that Giambattista Bragadin, a penni- 
less patrician, was selling State secrets to the 
Spanish ambassador, and they speedily hanged him. 
Their precautions might often be unnecessary, but 
they never fell short. Once, indeed, their sus- 
picions led them to commit an act of irreparable 
injustice. 



xin SARPI 291 

Antonio Foscarini, a patrician, went in 1609 as 
Venetian envoy to England. Discovering that the 
contents of his despatches were being revealed to 
other ambassadors, he discharged his secretary, 
Scarainelli, and engaged one Muscorno instead. Mus- 
corno was a charming, lively rogue, popular at the 
English court, a pet even of the English queen, his 
villainy not yet suspected. But he broke at last with 
his chief, who refused him some request. Muscorno 
vowed vengeance, and in due season he printed a 
book purporting to give the sayings and doings of 
Foscarini. The ambassador had been sufficiently 
unguarded in his speech and lavish in his style to 
lend color to some of the slanders. The Senate 
recalled him, but after a minute investigation, ac- 
quitted him. Muscorno paid for his calumnies with 
only two years in prison. Still the shadow of sus- 
picion hung over the luckless Foscarini. New in- 
formers whispered against him that he frequented 
the villa of the Countess of Arundel, whom he had 
known in England, and that there he connived with 
foreign diplomats. One evening he was seized, 
tried, condemned, and before the following daybreak 
he was strangled (April 20, 21, 1622). 

Lady Arundel, escorted by Sir Henry Wotton, 
the English ambassador, had an audience of the 
Signory, to whom she denounced as infamous the 
implication that her house was a meeting-place for 
conspirators, and declared that she had spoken with 
Foscarini only once in a year and a half. Less than 
four months after Foscarini's execution, a wretch 



292 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP, xm 

named Vano, who had been the principal witness 
against him, confessed that the accusation was a lie. 
The Ten, by a public statement of error, by an honor- 
able funeral and a monument, made what reparation 
they could to the memory of their victim. 



CHAPTER XIV 

DECLINE AND FALL 

IN resisting the Interdict, Venice served the cause 
of liberty through all future years ; in circumvent- 
ing the Spanish conspiracy, she proved that some 
of the vigor of her prime still remained to her. It 
was a brave thing to see a comparatively small state 
overcome the leagued malice of the Papacy and 
Spain; a rare thing to see a state in a life-or- 
death crisis turn for guidance to its wisest man ! 
Venice was saved, but nothing could hide the fact 
that she was become, through the fatal transforma- 
tion of Europe, a power of hardly second rank. 
The great stream of progress set henceforth north 
of the Alps, where the hopes of the race seemed to 
be bound up in the growth of the Teutonic nations, 
and of France, which alone counted among the 
Latin peoples. For two hundred and fifty years 
Italy, like an odalisk among contending Eastern 
sultans, was to be the spoil of one foreign con- 
queror after another. 

To escape this doom was the anxiety of Venice 

during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. 

Even before Sarpi died, Central Europe was torn 

by the Thirty Years' War, throughout which the 

293 



294 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

Eepublic steadfastly maintained her neutrality. 
Several times she offered to mediate, and the final 
negotiations for peace were partly brought about 
by her diplomats. To be the friend of everybody 
except Spain and the Turk was the role she 
strove to play. The Interdict had strengthened her 
relations with England ; a little later she drew near 
to Holland ; and when the genius of the House of 
Vasa raised Sweden to a commanding position, she 
counted Sweden among her wellwishers. But only 
indirectly could these distant states aid her. The 
real difficulty lay in keeping on good terms with 
powerful neighbors, who coveted her territory. She 
joined France and Savoy in the war against Spain 
over the Valtelline, but got nothing in return for 
her large outlay ; unless preventing the Spaniards 
from securing more than they had grasped at were 
a compensation. 

All the while the Eepublic knew that her chief 
peril lay with the Turk, and without waiving her 
dignity she took care not to provoke a conflict. 
The position was ticklish, for her traders fre- 
quented many parts of the Ottoman Empire and 
her colonies bounded those of the Turk, facts which 
gave endless occasions for petty disputes, any of 
which might flare up in a general quarrel. With 
the decline of Venetian commerce, piracy flourished 
in the Adriatic and through the Mediterranean. 
The Turks nominally discountenanced the pirates, 
but actually they often stood in with them. From 
Algiers and Tripoli, from Dalinatia and the eastern 



xiv DECLINE AND FALL 295 

coast of Italy, the corsairs set out on their sea forays. 
The Knights of Malta, descended from zealous 
Crusaders, made a business of preying on Mussul- 
man vessels, and equaled their Barbary rivals in 
daring and crime. Through them it was that the 
long-dreaded catastrophe occurred. 

In 1644 a squadron of Maltese pirates overtook 
some Turkish ships carrying pilgrims to Mecca, 
captured them after a stout resistance, and sailed 
westward with their booty. It happened that 
among the passengers were thirty of the Sultan's 
harem, including his favorite wife. The Maltese 
on their voyage homeward touched for water and 
provisions at several of the smaller Candian ports, 
where they set free some Greeks whom they had 
found on the Turkish ships. When the news 
reached Constantinople, Sultan Ibrahim flew into 
a towering rage, and vowed the destruction of the 
Maltese; but his wrath soon turned against the 
Venetians, whom he accused of instigating the pi- 
rates. Soranzo, the bailo at Constantinople, denied 
the charge, declaring that the Maltese landed in 
Candia quite unexpectedly, and had been ordered 
away at once. The Sultan pretended to be appeased, 
but he pushed forward the equipment of a vast 
armament with which, it was announced, he meant 
to annihilate Malta. The Venetians, suspecting 
evil, made preparations to defend Candia. 

That great island, governed by vassals who 
ground down the people and caused many bitter 
rebellions, had been the most troublesome of all her 



296 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

possessions. The natives could not be beaten out 
of their love of liberty ; and gradually the descend- 
ants of the Venetian colonists also clamored for in- 
dependence. Candia was to Venice what Ireland 
has been to England ; but, as pride had long for- 
bidden her to give it up, so now, when it was 
threatened by the Turk, and its inhabitants Avere 
on friendly terms with the mother country, honor 
not less than pride forbade her to abandon it. The 
island is two hundred and fifty miles long, and so 
narrow that in several places it is only fifteen miles 
across. Mountains cut it up into isolated districts. 
Its cities, Canea, Candia, Spinalonga, Suda, lie 
embayed along the northern coast. As it would 
have been impossible to protect the five hundred 
miles of seaboard, defensive measures were concen- 
trated on the cities, certain to be the enemy's ob- 
jective. Venice sent twenty-five hundred troops 
under Andrea Cornaro, the proveditor, equipped 
a fleet, gave the command of the land force to 
Gonzaga and Degenfeld, a northern soldier, and 
recruited mercenaries in the Archipelago. 

On April 30, 1645, the Turkish fleet of four hun- 
dred sail, with fifty thousand troops, left the Bos- 
phorus, ostensibly to conquer Malta. On June 23 
it appeared off Canea. The Turks began without 
delay to besiege the city, which surrendered after 
a two months' defense (August 22). Italy had 
already taken alarm at the prospect of another 
Turkish invasion, and the Pope, the Grand Duke 
of Tuscany, the King of Naples, and the Maltese 



xiv DECLINE AND FALL 297 

furnished each a few galleys to act with the Vene- 
tians ; but these allies, as usual, worked at cross 
purposes and accomplished little. The Turks 
inferred from the ease with which they captured 
Canea, not less than from the apparent incompe- 
tence of the Venetian commanders, that they should 
find the whole island an easy prey. They were 
soon undeceived. 6iagio Zuliani blew up the fort 
of S. Teodoro, himself, garrison and all, 
rather than capitulate : and when the Turkish 
pasha called on Suda to surrender, Minotti and 
Malipiero, who commanded there, replied : " The 
fortress is not ours, nor can we dispose of it ; but 
the Doge is master, and he has intrusted to us its 
defense, which we shall maintain to the last breath ; 
so come on whenever you choose, for we are ready 
to welcome you." In their courage, these men 
truly represented Venice. When the winter season 
put a stop to active operations, the Turks sat down 
before Candia, the capital city, in the sullen deter- 
mination to starve it out. 

Venice had now to decide whether to prosecute 
the war or to buy peace by ceding the island. Few 
voices spoke for peace, although nobody was deceived 
as to the magnitude of the struggle ahead. The 
first year's demands had exhausted the treasury. 
Interest at seven per cent, showed how the public 
credit was shaken. To raise cash, the Signory 
adopted a desperate means : it sold offices to the 
highest bidder, and admitted to the ranks of the 
nobility any Venetian who maintained one thousand 



298 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

soldiers for one year, or paid the equivalent, sixty 
thousand ducats. 1 Even provincials, by contribut- 
ing seventy thousand ducats, could see their names 
inscribed in the Golden Book. So largely Avas this 
honor coveted, that some seventy families opened 
their purses, and the treasury received seven mil- 
lion ducats. That this transaction jars upon us 
measures the high estimation we are bound to feel 
for the dignity of Venice; in other states, such 
traffic would have occasioned no shock. For cen- 
turies, the Papacy had been cankered with simony 
bishops' mitres, cardinals' hats, the pontiff's 
tiara itself, being freely bought and sold. Even 
to-day the British peerage is replenished by persons 
whose first qualification is wealth, and in America 
lavish subscribers to campaign funds are requited 
with cabinet offices and ambassadorships. The 
Prime Minister who creates batches of peers to 
carry a vote in the House of Lords, or the President 
who doles out honors for dollars, has certainly no 
such extenuation to offer as the Venetian Signory 
had in 1646 : yet one remembers that at another 
crisis, still more desperate, Venetian patriotism pre- 
vailed over private ambition, and all citizens, noble* 
or gentle, poured their wealth into the treasury ; 
but in 1646 the spirit of 1379 had passed away. 
We must not, however, be unjust. For Venice 

1 " But this course is used with a reservation always," says 
Howell, writing contemporaneously, " that merit must concur 
with money, so that it is not the highest bidder that carries it " 
(p. 53). 



xiv DECLINE AND FALL 299 

pushed on this great Candian War with mettle 
worthy of the days of her unabated glory. Before 
hostilities reopened in 1646, she had strengthened 
her forces in Candia, added new ships to her fleets, 
prepared to extend the war in Dalmatia, and forti- 
fied Malamocco and the Lido against a possible 
naval attack. She despatched her agents into every 
court in Europe, and even to Persia, in the hope of 
rousing a general crusade. Unfortunately for her, 
the European situation almost assured the Turk 
that he need fear no Christian alliance. England 
was torn by civil war, and France was involved in 
the interminable struggle which had convulsed 
Central Europe since 1618. Nothing daunted, 
Venice singly met the enemy when spring came. 
Little did either combatant foresee that it would 
take a quarter of a century to end the struggle. 

We cannot describe piecemeal twenty-five years 
of fighting ; such a chronicle would be sad to read, 
and tedious. The Turks proposed to reduce the 
city of Candia by blockade and siege. The Vene- 
tians strove to keep the city provisioned, and by 
blockading the Dardanelles to prevent stores or 
reinforcements for the Turkish army in Crete 
from passing through. As a further diversion, she 
carried on a guerrilla fight in Dalmatia. Year by 
year the contest fluctuated round these three 
objects. The Venetians won some splendid victo- 
ries, but they could not dislodge the Turks from 
Candia, and by a defeat, or failure to strike at the 
opportune moment, they more than once lost what 



300 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

promised to be a telling advantage in the Levant. 
In 1648 the Kepublic sounded the Porte as to terms 
of peace, but when she learned that the cession of 
Candia was the first demand, she declined to ne- 
gotiate. Ten years later the Turks offered to end 
the war on the same terms, and were rejected. 
Venice sought everywhere for help. To placate the 
Pope, she consented to the return of the Jesuits 
(1657). She urged the Cossacks of the Don to in- 
vade Turkey. She cherished hopes that the Magyars 
might break through the Balkans and threaten Con- 
stantinople by land. The magnificent resistance 
of Candia did, in truth, stir the admiration of the 
Christian world, although it failed, through the per- 
versity of foreign politicians, to call the needed 
allies to the rescue. One imagines that the first 
question put to newsbringers in those days was, 
" Does Candia still hold out ? " Twice, indeed, 
large bodies of French volunteers landed on the 
island and expected by a single brilliant stroke to 
destroy the Turkish army and win eternal fame. 
But both times they were quickly worsted, and 
lacking perseverance they sailed away. 

Although heroism is the commonplace of war, 
yet we cannot pass over unmentioned some of the 
heroic deeds of the Venetians in this gigantic 
struggle. In 1647 a fierce wind blew Tommaso 
Morosini out of his course to Negropont, where the 
Turkish fleet lay. Morosini had only a single 
galley, the Turks had forty-five, yet he did not 
flinch. He cannonaded the enemy until they came 



xiv DECLINE AND FALL 301 

to close quarters ; then he fought them with Greek 
fire. At last they boarded, and he was struck 
down; still his men would not yield, and before 
long the whole Venetian fleet, drawn to the scene 
by the firing, put the Turks to flight. Since Sir 
Richard Grenville in the Revenge dared the Span- 
ish galleons at Flores, such valor had had no par- 
allel. The same spirit upheld the Venetians on 
shore. When a Turkish mine exploded at Candia, 
and an officer rushed to Luigi Moceuigo, the Cap- 
tain-General, with the cry, " All is lost ! " Mocenigo 
said : " Well, then, we will die sword in hand. Let 
whoever is not a coward, follow me ! " He repulsed 
the onslaught of the enemy, and, in the words of 
Romanin, " cost the Turks twenty years of war." 
Another Mocenigo Lazzaro displayed similar 
resolution ; he was running the Turkish batteries 
in the Dardanelles on an expedition against Con- 
stantinople itself, when the magazine on his ship 
exploded and he was killed by a falling spar. His 
death checked an enterprise which might have 
turned the fortunes of the contest. Splendid, too, 
were the exploits of Francesco Morosini, the last of 
the Venetian commanders who combined genius for 
generalship with flawless personal bravery. 

But the Turks were equally brave. They had 
large reserves to draw fresh troops from, and being 
a nation whose first industry was war, they suffered 
less than the Venetians from the impoverishment of 
war. Above all, they could not be driven from their 
positions in Crete. In 1667 they drew their siege 



302 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

lines still nearer to the city of Candia and carried 
on a vigorous bombardment. The earth was honey- 
combed with mines and countermines. In less than 
six months the Venetians made 17 sorties, repelled 
32 assaults, sprang 618 mines, lost 3600 men, and 
killed (by their own estimate) 20,000 Turks. The 
next year twelve regiments of French under the 
Duke de La Feuillade and others came to the island. 
They would not listen to Morosini's advice, and 
having been routed in an ill-judged sally, they 
departed. The Venetians, despite their herculean 
efforts, were surely failing. In 1669, having sur- 
prised and destroyed a Turkish fleet, Morosini used 
his victory as a lever for moving the vizier to make 
peace. On September 6 they signed the treaty by 
which the Sultan received the city of Candia and 
the rest of the island, except the ports of Carabusa, 
Suda, and Spinalonga, and the Venetians were to 
withdraw with 328 cannon, their troops, munitions, 
and holy vessels. On September 26, 1669, they 
evacuated the capital, 4000 of whose inhabitants 
embarked with them for the mother country. 

Thus ended one of the most obstinate of wars 
one so prolonged that many of the soldiers who saw 
its close were not born when it began. It cost Venice 
126,000,000 ducats, equivalent in purchasing power 
to a billion and half dollars to-day. Her loss in 
men was heavy, though far smaller than that of 
the Turks, 108,000 of whom perished in the siege 
of Candia alone. After dazzling the world by her 
magnificent defense, she came out of the ordeal a 



xiv DECLINE AND FALL 303 

broken power. Negropont had been wrested from 
her in 1470, Cyprus in 1571, and now Candia in 
1669 ; by these stages was her empire in the Orient 
shorn. Henceforth she must content herself with 
the Adriatic. 

In making peace without consulting the Sen- 
ate, Morosini disobeyed precedent, for which some 
sticklers would have impeached him; but the 
majority of the Great Council understood well 
enough that he had acted wisely, and they absolved 
him. The Republic set about recuperating her 
strength. But the loss of Candia rankled. The 
Turks having been driven back from Vienna (1683), 
the farthest point they were destined to reach in 
their westward invasion, the Venetians deemed it 
safe to join the league against them (1684). Moro- 
sini carried the war into Greece, and during the first 
summer (1685) he captured Coron and conquered the 
province of Maina; the next year his lieutenant, 
Konigsmark, took Modon and Nauplia ; in 1687 he 
added the rest of the Peloponnese, except the for- 
tress of Malvasia, to his conquests, and the Venetian 
Senate decreed that a bronze bust of him, bearing 
the inscription, "Francesco Maurosceno Peloponne- 
s?'orco," should be placed in the Sala dello Scrutinio. 
In his following campaign he conquered Athens. 
During the bombardment a Venetian shell burst 
in the Parthenon, where the Turks stored their 
powder, and caused an explosion which shattered 
the temple. It is one of the ironies of history, that 
the general of the most beautiful of modern cities 



304 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

should have been the instrument to destroy the 
most beautiful building of antiquity ! " Alas, 
Athens ! " Morosini is said to have exclaimed, as he 
saw the havoc his guns had made, "cradle of the 
arts, how art thou now brought low ! " He was still 
prosecuting the war, when he received word that 
he had been elected doge. On going home to be 
crowned, his countrymen gave him an overwhelm- 
ing welcome ; for they felt that his victories more 
than compensated for the loss of Crete. 

With an access of their old-time energy they set 
about organizing a government, commerce, and edu- 
cation in the Morea ; and they worked so efficiently 
that the population doubled in the course of a few 
years. But the Turks would not stay quiet long, 
and when other Venetian commanders had failed in 
beating them, Morosini himself was chosen Captain- 
General and took the field a breach of precedent 
which the jealous Signory had not permitted for 
many hundred years. He reached the Morea in 
the summer, and after an unimportant campaign 
he went into winter quarters at Nauplia. There 
he died January 9, 1694. With Francesco Morosini 
expired the last of the great Venetians. By the 
Peace of Carlowitz, which Prince Eugene's victory 
at Zenta (September 11, 1697) forced the Sultan to 
accept, the Republic was formally recognized as 
mistress of the Morea (1698). She enjoyed only a 
brief tenure, however, for in 1716 the Turks won it 
back, with the Candian ports which she had clung 
to, and the Peace of Passarovitz (1718) confirmed 



xiv DECLINE AND FALL 305 

the Turks in their conquest. Never again did the 
Republic take part in negotiations of European 
scope. 

The Candian War and the conquest of the Morea 
redeem the old age of Venice from insignificance. 
It was fitting that she who " once held the gorgeous 
East in fee" should defend the modern world, 
the world which had abandoned her, from the 
last dangerous onset of the Ottomans. That effort 
drained her lifeblood, but it also crippled the Turk 
beyond recovery. It let men see that neither lux- 
ury, nor the disillusions and timidity of old age, 
could wholly quench that "sense of honor which had 
been hers for a thousand years. And in the career 
of Morosini the Peloponnesian, patriot, hero, and 
doge, the latest Venetians seemed to be linked 
with the earlier, with the generations which had 
followed Orseolo the Great, and Michiel, and En- 
rico Dandolo, before the Ten and the Three had 
reduced the Doge to a figurehead. In that after- 
glow of heroism and that reversion to the practice 
of her glorious prime, she fulfilled her destiny. 

During the eighteenth century, after the Peace 
of Passarovitz, Venice had little external history. 
She was obliged to chastise the corsairs of Dulcigno 
who harassed her merchantmen in the Adriatic, and 
it was her admiral, Angelo Emo, who cleansed the 
seas of the Algerine pirates (1784-92). She dared 
to risk a rupture with Benedict XIV over his illegal 
granting of indulgences. She undertook the con- 
struction along the lidi of a sea wall which then 



306 



had hardly a rival in magnitude. By commercial 
treaties, and by economic experiments, she tried to 
revive her prosperity. As the century wore on, 
there was indeed a little stir of new life, when the 
ideas which begot the French Revolution dropped 
seedwise into receptive minds. But her power of 
initiative had vanished. 

Some historians discover in the internal affairs 
of the last two centimes a definite effort to modify 
the organic structure of the Republic. The Great 
Council and the Ten with their offshoot, the Three, 
were in constant antagonism, for the Ten and the 
Three held themselves above their nominal master, 
the Great Council. Having the police work of 
the state in their charge, they could not be popu- 
lar policemen never are. The system of espio- 
nage, by which they got information of the most 
trivial affairs, was not the less odious for being 
accepted as necessary. Above all, the Ten were 
held responsible for the division of the aristocracy 
into a higher and a lower class, wealth being the 
test. It became the practice, if it were not actually 
the law, to close the great offices to the poor nobles ; 
for only the rich could maintain the requisite pomp 
and escape the suspicion of taking bribes. After 
1500, when Venetian commerce began to decline, 
the number of poor nobles multiplied. These Bar- 
nabotti, as they were called, still had their seats 
in the Great Council, but, as the power of the Ten 
increased, they exercised less and less influence on 
the government, until it came to pass that they 



xiv DECLINE AND FALL 307 

could not prevent the enacting of laws against 
themselves. 

In insisting on wealth as the basis of the oligar- 
chy, the Ten followed the tradition of the Repub- 
lic. A state controlled by pauper patricians would 
be ridiculous. The problem in every country ruled 
by a privileged class has been how to guard against 
the deterioration of that class, how to slough off 
its incompetent or unlucky members, and it has 
never been successfully solved ; for by the very 
constitution of such countries, these undesirable 
members cannot be deprived of the position which 
they owe to the accident of birth. The Ten had 
to keep the patriciate from becoming through its 
poor relations despicable in the eyes of the common 
people ; it had also to secure the ablest public ser- 
vants ; but after the discrimination between the rich 
and the poor nobles was practiced, and a few great 
families constituted the state, much more after rich 
merchants could buy their way into the Golden Book, 
it was difficult to parry the charge of the malcontents 
that wealth and not patriotism was the cardinal qual- 
ification in a Venetian noble. The poor, as happens 
everywhere, bred freely, so that their contingent in 
the Great Council constantly increased, and their 
sense of wrongs was proportionately sharpened. 

The first clash between the Great Council and the 
Ten occurred in 1582, when the Council refused to 
confirm a candidate whom the Ten nominated to its 
Junta. Forty years later the execution of Antonio 
Foscarini, quickly followed by proofs of his inno- 



308 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

cence, shocked and alarmed everybody. That the 
Ten should punish swiftly, was taken for granted ; 
that they should not punish 011 an uncertainty, 
was presupposed: if they blundered so terribly 
with Foscarini, who was safe? 

Minds were thus inflamed when Kenier Zeno re- 
turned from an embassy to Koine and was elected to 
the Ducal Council (1624). He belonged in the esti- 
mation of his enemies to that type of reformers who 
have a boundless capacity for irritating and little 
for persuading men who, were they gatekeepers 
of heaven, would see a stampede of aspirants to 
sainthood turn in the other direction. Yet, withal, 
Zeno had amazing courage, pertinacity, and a just 
cause. A difference of opinion quickly arose be- 
tween him and Doge Contarini; he was adjudged 
guilty of disrespect to his Serenity, and banished 
for a year. In a few months he came back, cov- 
ered with popularity, and was chosen one of the Ten. 
He at once opened fire on the Doge, of whose sons 
one had recently accepted a cardinal's hat, and two 
others had been made Senators. Zeno rightly de- 
clared that this was an infringement on the ducal 
promission ; and when his colleagues tried to sup- 
press him, the Great Council backed him up. The 
Doge protested that if he had transgressed the law, 
he had done so unintentionally. Assassins waylaid 
Zeno, and wounded him severely. On his recovery, 
he renewed his agitation. The Great Council again 
elected him to the Ten, who warned him that if he 
attempted to reopen the quarrel, he should suffer. 



xiv DECLINE AND FALL 309 

Nothing daunted, he addressed the Great Council 
at its next meeting. One of his opponents told 
him, " This Republic is such that it will tolerate no 
Caesars " ; but the taunt failed, because Zeno made 
it clear that he, like Brutus, was fighting for old-time 
freedom, which despots had robbed Venice of. His 
allusions to the Doge brought a sharp rejoinder from 
that dignitary. The meeting closed in a hubbub. 
That same day the Ten deliberated as to arresting 
Zeno, but thinking that imprudent, they ordered 
him to keep in retreat ; a few days later, they de- 
creed his exile. Popular excitement now rose so 
high against them that they wavered, and the 
Great Council annulled the decrees by nearly three 
votes to one (out of 1146 voting). 

Zeno appeared at the next meeting of the Great 
Council and urged so vehemently the need of reform, 
that a commission of five " correctors " was pres- 
ently chosen to revise the capitularies of all the 
councils. The commissioners disagreed on several 
points, and the Great Council finally voted that it 
alone had authority over all branches of the govern- 
ment ; it conceded, nevertheless, to the Ten juris- 
diction over the patriciate, on the ground that the 
conduct of the nobles directly concerned the State. 
The efforts of Zeno, of whom after 1628 we hear no 
more, came to naught; but that one man should 
raise such a storm, shows that individual courage 
still counted in that rigid body. The truth is that 
any attempt to convert the Signory into a repre- 
sentative government after the English pattern 



310 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

would have run counter to the genius of the Vene- 
tians, and to their practices for five hundred years. 
After Zeno had his quietus, the poor nobles kept on 
multiplying and grumbling, and the Ten continued 
in very nearly their old course. 

In 1761 a silly affair let loose the latent hatred 
of the Barnabotti. A lady of Brescia, whose mil- 
liner had not furnished coifs that suited her, per- 
suaded Angelo Querini, a Senator with whom she 
was intimate, to cause the milliner to be expelled 
from Venice. The victim of this tyranny appealed 
to the Inquisitors of State, who revoked the order. 
Querini burst into rage against their arbitrariness ; 
but when they resolved to arrest and deport him, 
the Great Council took his side. Indignation 
against the Three, and their superiors, the Ten, ran 
so strong that a new commission of correctors had 
to be appointed. Their report caused an outburst 
in the Great Council, but again the majority passed 
a vote of confidence in the Ten and the Three. 
The instinct of the nobility recognized that, in 
spite of their tyranny, they were indispensable ; 
and the common people rejoiced to see them upheld, 
as the only powers that dared to keep the insolent 
patricians in check. A little later, when Giorgio 
Pisani and Carlo Contarini, imbued with a sense of 
the decadence of the Eepublic, advocated reforms, 
the police escorted them out of the capital. 

The ancient organism could not readjust itself to 
new conditions, nor even tolerate the annoyance of 
having reforms suggested. Historians commonly 



xiv DECLINE AND FALL 311 

linger over the last century of the life of Venice, as 
if for the satisfaction of pointing a moral. After 
the record of a thousand years of glory, the con- 
trast of decadence, of exhaustion from dissipation, 
of the sceptre dropping from the vice-enfeebled 
grasp, is too tempting for the moralist to pass by. 
Sudden extinction would have been far less tragic ; 
but Fate does not grant that to a whole people. 

The Queen of the Adriatic during those last dec- 
ades lured the pleasure seekers of the world to her. 
She had reduced voluptuousness to a fine art. The 
serenades, the balls, and masquerades at the casi- 
nos, the incessant gambling at the Kidotto, the luxu- 
rious country life in the villas along the Brenta, 
the sumptuous apparel and stately ceremonies, the 
conversazioni, the banquets, the mirth not wholly 
forced, go on from year to year. One gets the best 
of it in Goldoni's comedies. Life has become all 
comedy, too light to warrant serious comment. 
Morals have disappeared, and in their stead we 
have manners insincere, superficial, yet full of 
grace. Manners permit all sins, so long as the sin- 
ner does not shock good taste. The profession of 
courtesan, too long honored in Venice, and formerly 
restricted to a single class, was now practiced by 
all classes. Family ties among the patricians had 
grown so perilously slack that marriage did not 
become obsolete, only because it was necessary 
for propagating a legitimate heir ; that achieved, 
conjugal relations ceased by mutual consent. The 
patrician husband kept his mistresses, the wife 



312 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

had her permanent dcisbeo and her casual lovers ; 
often, indeed, it was stipulated in the marriage con- 
tract who the dcisbeo should be. Poor nobles hun- 
gry, envious, proud were huddled in palace attics. 
The oligarchy had reached its last stage. The other 
classes do not seem to have been equally corrupt. 
The business men and the shopkeepers got a living, 
although the days of great commercial prosperity 
had passed; the lower classes, the conditions of 
whose existence rise or fall very slowly, were still 
probably as comfortable as any of their fellows in 
Europe. A twelfth of the people received alms. 

Only the Ten and the Three toiled on sleeplessly. 
Little by little they had excluded their partners 
in the government. " "We will work ; trust us : all 
leisure shall be yours," so they seemed to say to 
their brother patricians. Their zeal for the State 
never flagged, but it grew narrower ; and the idle- 
ness which it procured for others, sapped the last 
energy of the Venetian oligarchy, for it took away 
ambition. The Venetian nobles, whose ancestors 
had been merchants of great enterprise, and whose 
grandfathers had still been allowed to employ their 
faculties in administration, were reduced to a life 
without aim or incentive. To make the cut of a 
milliner's coif an affair of state, proclaims their 
inanity. The Ten and Three faithfully carried out 
their bargain. They kept the city quiet, no poli- 
tics, no open feuds, no noisy discontent, a perfect 
field for genteel dissipation. And yet according to 
their lights they tried to restrain those forms of dis- 



xiv DECLINE AND FALL 313 

sipatioii gambling, for instance, and extravagant 
dress which they feared would injure the Repub- 
lic. The machine framed to govern an empire had 
now hardly more than the policing of a city for its 
object. The State was overgoverned ; bureaus and 
departments, with little further reason for existing, 
swarmed with poor relations pensioners who did 
the State no service. 

And all the while streams of visitors thronged 
into the beautiful city, which had become, more even 
than Paris, the centre of the world's revels. To the 
stranger, under the spell of the siren, the sight of 
the worn-out patriciate, of the shrunken commerce 
and the tottering State, brought no pang : the place 
was too poetic for realities as he knew them at home, 
andjae found that these spectral reminders of past 
greatness harmonized with his dream of Venice. If 
he sought voluptuous entertainment, he ha-.l it: 
what mattered it to him that the siren who beguiled 
him was dying, body and soul? Not least tragic 
was the consciousness of some of the Venetians 
themselves that these things led inevitably to de- 
struction, and that they must look on powerless to 
save. " This century will be terrible to our sons 
and grandsons," said Doge Foscarini, at about the 
same time that Louis XV uttered his cynicism, 
" After us, the deluge." The Venetians, some of 
them, at least, would have sacrificed their lives to 
avert the catastrophe ; but they did not know how, 
and they had the added distress of perceiving that 
their ignorance meant ruin. 



314 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP 

The crash came at last when the French Ee volu- 
tion sounded the knell of the Old Regime. Through 
its alert diplomats the Signoiy could follow the 
wildfire progress in Paris toward anarchy; but, 
although startled, it hardly realized how the Revo- 
lution would affect Venice, until in 1796 Napoleon 
Bonaparte swept down into Italy with a French 
army, to drive out the Austrians and overthrow 
the old governments. The Republic declared her 
neutrality ; but this did not save her territory from 
being overrun by both contestants. Bonaparte 
crushed in turn Alvinzi, Beaulieu, AVurmser, the 
Austrian generals ; only Venice remained, and both 
he and the Directory at Paris had decided on put- 
ting an end to her existence. 

Any pretext would do. While his troops occupied 
several of the cities of the mainland, his emissaries 
conspired under the very shadow of the Ducal Pal- 
ace. He sowed accusations against the "gloomy 
despotism of the Lagoons," and appealed to the 
Venetians to welcome himself and the French as 
allies bringing liberty. He pretended that the 
Signory was covertly abetting Austria against him ; 
yet almost at the same moment he signed the secret 
preliminaries of peace at Leoben, in which he agreed 
to cede to Austria the Venetian Terra Firma, with 
Istria and Dalmatia (April 18, 1797). So two 
robbers divide the spoils before they have slain their 
victim. Bonaparte did not stick at circulating 
forged manifestoes, which purported to come from 
Venetian leaders and urged the people to rise and 



xiv DECLINE AND FALL 315 

massacre the French. At Verona, the populace, 
exasperated by the truculence of the French soldiery, 
did rise and slay many score of their tormentors, 
making the " Veronese Easter " a grim reminder of 
the " Sicilian Vespers." To a deputation which the 
Signory sent to him at Graz, Bonaparte said, "I 
wish no more Inquisition, no more Senate ; I will be 
an Attila to the Venetian Senate " (April 25). And 
he kept his word. 

The French troops advanced to Malghera and 
Brondolo, ready to descend on the capital. A 
French cruiser tried to force its way into the har- 
bor, but was captured, and its commander killed. 
This rekindled Bonaparte's wrath. The Signory 
in bewilderment discussed measures of defense ; 
but what in its feebleness could it do? Already 
the boom of French cannon rolled over the Lagoons. 
" To-night we shall not be safe even in bed," said 
the bewildered Doge, Lodovico Manin. Resistance 
being despaired of, the Great Council on May 1 
voted to despatch envoys to Bonaparte to negotiate 
a change in government. That same day he had 
declared war. He insisted on suicidal terms the 
abdication of the Signory, the extinction of the 
Senate, and the substitution therefor of a popular 
representative government. On May 12 the Great 
Council met to take action. Whilst Giovanni 
Minotti, the senior Ducal Councilor, was speaking, 
a sound of artillery was heard. The panic-stricken 
assemblage, believing that the French were at 
hand, shouted, " The question ! the question ! " and 



316 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

without further debate, begau to ballot. There 
were 512 votes for accepting Bonaparte's terms, 
20 for rejecting them, and 5 defective votes 
showing only 537 members present, less than half of 
the Great Council, which then numbered over 1200. 
Nevertheless, the vote stood, and the Venetian Re- 
public ceased to be. That night Manin, the last of 
the doges, took off his ducal bonnet and handed it 
to a servant, saying, " Put it away : we shall not 
use it again." It was just eleven hundred years 
since the election of Anafesto, the first Doge of 
Venice. 

Under French auspices a provisional democratic 
government was set up. Throughout the summer 
the French looted the city and Dogado, and shipped 
to Paris paintings, statues, manuscripts, jewels to 
adorn the Louvre that storehouse where the most 
rapacious of thieves deposited his stolen goods. 
In the autumn at Campo Formio, Bonaparte con- 
cluded with Austria a final treaty in which it was 
agreed that France should keep the Ionian Islands, 
and that Austria should annex Daluiatia, Istria, 
Venice, and the Venetian mainland as far west as 
Lake Garda and the Adige (October 17). Uncon- 
sulted and despised, the Venetians, still nominally 
free, were thus made subjects of the House of 
Hapsburg. On January 18, 1798, the last detach- 
ment of French despoilers having embarked, the 
first Austrian corps took possession of the capital. 

Death from old age requires no autopsy. The 
Venetian Republic had lived out its life. It had 



xiv DECLINE AND FALL 317 

enjoyed longevity beyond all other states. Like 
a species born in one geologic age, it survived into 
another for which it was not adapted. The com- 
panions of its youth and maturity had all van- 
ished except the Papacy and the Holy Roman 
Empire; Napoleon was soon to carry the Pope 
captive to Fontainebleau, and to snuff out the 
flickering Empire ; for he was a merciless Reality 
before whom ghosts and empty survivals shrank 
into nothingness. 

And yet our last word on Venice shall not be 
of failure, decrepitude, death. We will rejoice, 
rather, in her transcendent achievements : her forti- 
tude and skill in building her home where only sea 
birds had nested; her enterprise in commerce; her 
civilizing work in linking East and West; her 
tolerance and steadfastness ; her justice in advance 
of her epoch ; her solicitude for the well-being of 
all her children, repaid by a devotion which the 
sons of no other country have surpassed ; her long 
example of splendid dignity; her mighty strokes 
for human freedom ; her defense of Western Europe 
against the Turk ; her most modern separation of 
the Church from the State ; her joyousness ; her art ! 
And I cannot forget that though the Venetians of 
1797 let themselves be passed like chattels from 
one foreigner to another, their descendants fifty 
years later redeemed the ancient fame of Venice 
for bravery, and added a page to the world's chroni- 
cles of heroism. 



CHAPTER XV 

EPILOGUE 

ALTHOUGH Venice was creation of one of the 
most practical race of men the world has seen, 
of men who as merchants and empire-builders rank 
with the English ; of men who for enterprise and 
for blending genuine piety with business shrewd- 
ness resemble the Yankees of earlier days ; of 
men who devised a masculine form of government 
in which reason controlled every joint, leaving no 
play to emotion, yet we think of her as femi- 
nine, and the fascination which she has exerted 
above all other cities is truly a woman's fasci- 
nation. At Venice, the dull become poetic, the 
commonplace kindle with romance. The genera- 
tions of grave, resolute, far-seeing men are forgotten; 
the splendor, the charm, the glory, the ineffable 
grace, remain. Strangers ask eagerly not about 
Dandolo and Pisani, or Sarpi and Morosini, but 
about the legends and the pageants; for it seems 
as improbable that the humdrum concerns of trade 
and administration, or even the weighty business 
of war and statecraft, could have been carried on 
in this magic city as in Fairyland itself. 

We have heard the history ; let us, before part- 
ing, look for a moment at the pageant. 
318 



CHAP, xv EPILOGUE 319 

In 1268, when medieval Venice was in full 
flower, Lorenzo Tiepolo was elected doge, and it 
happens that a keen-eyed, color-loving spectator, 
Martin da Canale, saw and chronicled the spectacle 
which followed. 

When the forty-one electors had reached an 
agreement, the bells of St. Mark's were rung, and 
from all parts of the city the people of Venice 
flocked to the Piazza and the Church. The elec- 
tors mounted the balcony of the Church, and one 
of them addressed the multitude and announced 
the name of the new Doge. Thereupon they 
pressed round him and bore him to the altar of St. 
Mark, and having stripped his clothes from him 
and put on his ducal robes, at that altar he took 
the oath of office, and the gonfalon of St. Mark, all 
gold, was given to him and he received it. Amid 
great rejoicing he went out of the Church and 
ascended the staircase of the Ducal Palace. The 
chaplains stood on the steps and sang the ducal 
lauds in these words : " Christ conquers ! Christ 
reigns ! Christ commands ! To our lord, Lorenzo 
Tiepolo, by God's grace illustrious Doge of Venice, 
Dalmatia, and Croatia, and ruler of a fourth part 
and a half of the whole empire of Romania, salva- 
tion, honor, long life, and victory ! St. Mark, help 
thou him ! " Then the Doge went into the Pal- 
ace and entered on his office, subscribing to a 
formal oath ; after which he appeared at a loggia 
and spoke very wisely to the people, and they 
praised him above all others. The chaplains then 



320 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE < HAP. 

repaired to Sant' Agostino, where the Dogaressa 
dwelt, and sang before her also the ducal lauds. 

This informal celebration was ushered in by 
elaborate festivities, in which all classes engaged. 
On land there was a procession of the guilds, those 
groups of tradesmen, artisans, and apprentices that 
had existed in Venice from very early times, had 
grown rich and skillful, and had organized each its 
internal government. On this 24th of July, 1268, 
they put on their richest attire each guild hav- 
ing its distinctive livery and took their places in 
the great parade which wound through the narrow 
streets to the Piazza and the Palace. 

First come the master smiths and their appren- 
tices with a gonfalon and with their heads gar- 
landed, while trumpeters play before them ; next, 
the furriers, wearing rich mantles of ermine and 
vair and other rare furs. They are followed by the 
dressers of small skins, clothed in samite and taffeta 
and in scarlet; the dressers of lambskins march 
next, singing canzonets to the Doge; after them, 
the weavers, singing songs and snatches. And 
now, says Da Canale, " the joy and the festivity 
begin to increase," for the tailors appear, their ten 
masters dressed in white with vermilion stars, 
their coats and mantles lined with furs, and all 
merrily singing. The next, crowned with olive 
and bearing olive-branches, are the woolen manu- 
facturers, and after them the makers of cotton 
cloth, in fustian. The makers of quilts and jerkins 
have new suits, each Avith a white cloak worked 



xv EPILOGUE 321 

with fleur-de-lis, and each cloak with a hood, and 
the men themselves wear garlands of pearls strung 
with gold. The pageant grows more splendid, for 
here are the cloth-of-gold workers, sumptuous in 
that fabric themselves, and their workmen in pur- 
ple, with hoods of gold, worked and decorated with 
pearls and gold, on their heads. The cordwainers 
who follow are equally resplendent, and so are the 
mercers. Nor will the cheesemongers be outshone, 
in their scarlet and purple costume, trimmed with 
fur, and their gold and pearl ornaments. The 
sellers of wild fowl and the fishmongers come in 
vair, bearing fine game and fish as an offering to 
the Doge. And after them we see the company 
of the barbers, two of whom, clad in armor and 
mounted on richly caparisoned horses, dub them- 
selves knights-errant and lead captive four damsels, 
strangely garbed. Accompanied by their guild, 
they ride up the Palace steps into the presence of 
the Doge, and after salutation they announce that if 
any of his court wish to do battle for the damsels, 
they are ready to defend them. But the Doge bids 
them welcome, assuring them that no one shall 
dispute their prize; and so their little comedy ends. 
They have scarcely passed on ere the glassworkers 
advance, bearing decanters and bottles and other 
rarest specimens of their skill. The comb makers, 
a merry crew, bring a great cage filled with divers 
birds, and when they open the door the birds fly 
out and away over the heads of the multitude, to 
the delight of the little children, who run after 



322 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

them. Other guilds loom up in the distance; but 
our chronicler mentions only the goldsmiths, the 
most magnificent of all. The masters of this 
guild display very rich clothes, and gold and silver 
ornaments, and jewels of great price, "sapphires, 
emeralds, diamonds, topazes, jacinths, amethysts, 
rubies, jaspers, carbuncles." The wealth of Ormuz 
and of Ind sparkles as they file before us in the 
summer sun. 

Each company is preceded by trumpeters sound- 
ing on silver trumpets and by men playing cymbals ; 
servants carry large silver vials of wine and golden 
goblets; and there are captains who see that the 
lines form promptly and march in order, two by 
two. And after each guild has greeted the Doge, 
wishing him long life, victory, honor, and salvation, 
it descends the Ducal Staircase and goes to the palace 
in the Sant' Agostino quarter to salute the Dogaressa. 

But pageants address the eye and not the ear. 
Feeble are words to conjure up such a scene as this, 
so varied, so gorgeous, so jocund, yet so stately ! 
Descriptions cloy. Happily whoever has visited 
Venice has fed his eye on the paintings where 
these things still glow. 

And yet, although descriptions pale, we must take 
one glimpse of that Venetian festival which out- 
dazzled and outlasted all the rest the yearly 
wedding of the Republic and the Adriatic, which 
commemorated the victorious naval expedition 
when Orseolo the Great cleared the Dalmatian 
coast of pirates and established the supremacy of 



xv EPILOGUE 323 

Venice on the sea. To mark that triumph, the 
Doge and his retinue went in procession through 
the Lido port to the open Adriatic, and offered this 
supplication, " Grant, Lord, that for us, and for 
all who sail thereon, the sea may be calm and quiet ; 
this is our prayer, Lord, hear us." After this the 
Doge and his suite were sprinkled, and the rest of 
the holy water was poured into the sea, while the 
priests chanted the words, " Purge me with hyssop, 
and I shall be clean." 

This ceremony, impressive for its simplicity, grew 
to be impressive for its splendor. In 1177, when 
Pope Alexander III and the Emperor Barbarossa 
met at Venice to settle, as they hoped, the imme- 
morial quarrel of the Papacy and the Empire, they 
took part in this celebration; and then it was, 
apparently, that the service was converted into an 
espousal. The Pope gave Doge Ziani an anointed 
ring, which he dropped solemnly into the Adriatic 
\vith the words, " Desponsamus te, Mare" ("We 
wed thee, Sea, in sign of our true and perpetual 
dominion "). 

From that time on the celebration of " La Sensa," 
or the Marriage of the Adriatic on Ascension Day, 
increased in stateliness, and long after Venice had 
lost the sceptre of the sea crowds of visitors jour- 
neyed yearly from all parts of the world to wit- 
ness that rite, symbolic of her former supremacy. 
Travelers and authors have vied with each other 
in depicting that dazzling spectacle : The Bucen- 
taur, the ducal galley, all gilded, with its canopy of 



324 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

crimson velvet ; the gold and crimson gonfalon of 
St. Mark ; the forty long oars, each manned by four 
rowers; the ducal throne fixed on a great golden 
shell ; the Doge himself, venerable and grave, clad 
in superb robes; the Councilors, the Procurators, 
the Senators, the Sages, the Avogadors, in crimson 
or black ; the Patriarch and his prelates wearing 
their richest vestments; the foreign ambassadors 
in their varied gala apparel; the multitudes of 
smaller galleys, barges, barks, and gondolas, follow- 
ing in the wake of the Bucentaur, each with its 
cargo of eager men and women; the unwonted 
stillness of the journey out; the solemnity of the 
marriage rite, when the Doge, unattended, from the 
stern of his barge drops the ring into the sea ; then 
the sudden taking up by ten thousand throats of 
his words, " Desponsamiis te, Mare "; the boundless 
vivacity, the acclamations, the triumphal energy, 
of the return to the city who has not in imagina- 
tion beheld all this, framed by the matchless Vene- 
tian architecture and the opaline waters of the 
Lagoon, and the sky of pale sapphire and sunbeams 
which arches above them ? 

Dead, long ago, the last Doge of Venice ; dead 
the gay throngs which last attended him ; the gol- 
den Bucentaur is dust ; the Ducal Palace, St. Mark's 
Church, nay, Venice herself, are become but a three 
days' wonder for modern tourists, who "nod, and 
peer, and hurry on," a gallery for the aesthetic, a 
musing-haunt for the thoughtful few. So fades 
away the glory of the world ! 



xv EPILOGUE 325 

"And what," asks the muser, before whom the 
vision of this splendor has floated, " what does it 
signify ? Is it but the ponip, the unrivaled pomp, 
and the vanity of a wicked world ? The colors have 
fed the eye, the pageants have bewitched the imagi- 
nation is that all?" Ah, no! Through those 
fleeting shows Venice embodied qualities which no 
other state has had in like degree : she taught the 
world the meaning of magnificence ; she set it an 
example in dignity. We have heard much of the 
ceremonial of Spain, but ceremonial is not mag- 
nificence; the mere description of the gorgeous 
costumes of the Magyar nobles dazzles us, but 
costume is not magnificence. Ceremonial may be 
dull the Spanish punctilio was stiff beyond the 
verge of the ludicrous; that is not dignity. We 
cannot associate magnificence with either the Ger- 
man or the Englishman or the American. The 
Prussian, at the utmost, can organize an imposing 
military review. The English have never had the 
artistic sense, nor the taste, which underlies magnifi- 
cence ; they have ever taken their pleasures sadly ; 
and while Englishmen may possess a noble carriage 
and countenances of high-bred dignity, they do not 
group well, but remain rigidly isolated, too conscious 
of themselves to be willing to blend in masses, which 
are the elements of a great pageant. Americans 
have all the English defects, and too often they 
lack even the English dignity. The French, too, 
have had little conception of magnificence as- 
suredly they have manifested no genius for it. 



326 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

They still point to the Grand Monarque that 
paltry manikin, with his full-bottomed wig, padded 
calves, and red-heeled pumps, and to his entourage 
of titled lackeys as their highest type of dignity 
and magnificence ; or they recall the display of the 
Third Napoleon, which was, after all, only tinsel 
and millinery, the stuff which theatrical pomps, 
performed mechanically after much drill, are made 
of. 

But the Venetians were magnificent by nature. 
This quality developed in them just as a genius for 
music develops in other races, and it expressed 
itself in pageants more and more splendid as their 
wealth increased. A dignity, likewise inborn, never 
forsook them. The spirit of Beauty, which was 
their peculiar dower, took great companies of men 
and women and composed them into moving pic- 
tures, as wonderful in their way as are the endur- 
ing masterpieces which that same spirit wrought on 
canvas, in mosaic, and in marble. Every class the 
noble, the religious, the commercial, the artisan, 
the plebeian had its place in the festivals, and at 
the head of them all, linked to all in this manifesta- 
tion of common interests, was the Doge. 

That Beauty may be not merely the ornament 
but the very body of Power, this surely is one 
thing Venice can teach us. We moderns command 
inexhaustible reservoirs of Power ; but of visible 
Beauty, how slight is our understanding, how beg- 
garly our product ! We look out, for the most part, 
on a sepia-tinted world; Venice bids us learn 



xv EPILOGUE 327 

the delight, not merely physical, which color can 
bring. To be gorgeous, but not barbaric ; magnifi- 
cent, but not pompous; dignified, but not stiff 
these are gifts which presuppose character; nay, 
they demand character in some respects of rarer 
fibre than that in which reside many of the virtues 
which we magnify. Those gifts the Venetians had. 
Venice proclaimed the joy of life, the glow of 
health, the exhilaration of conquest, the sweetness 
of prosperity, the confidence which comes with 
mastery. Was it not well that once in recorded 
history one nation should dare to proclaim that life 
on earth is passing good ? There is no danger that 
races or men will be long allowed to forget the 
traiisitoriness of the human lot, or its horrors and 
failures and bereavements. Fate sees to it that 
each generation shall witness, for a warning and a 
sign, the collapse of empire. Time is busy " turn- 
ing old glories into dreams." 

" Restless is wealth, the nerves of power 

Sink like a lute's in rain, 
The gods lend only for an hour, 
And then take back again." 

But to transmute wealth and power into joy, to 
live grandly, as if the gods had not merely lent for 
an hour, but had given for eternity, bespeaks great 
character. Joy is so much rarer than virtue; so 
very rare among the powerful and the very rich ! 

Remember, too, that the Venetians earned their 
prosperity, earned it against unparalleled odds; 



328 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE CHAP. 

they were brave, industrious, enterprising, prudent ; 
when blessings flowed in upon them, they rejoiced 
with a -healthy exuberance. "There is nothing 
better for a man than . . . that he should make 
his soul enjoy good in his labor. This also I saw, 
that it was from the hand of God." The Venetians 
realized that after a hard-won victory the triumph 
is legitimate ; that God can be worshiped as truly 
by accepting his gifts and delighting in them as by 
renouncing them. No doubt prosperity is the 
severest test of character, as Venice learned when 
after many centuries her magnificence had been 
softened into luxury and voluptuousness, and her 
pageants, though still superb, were shows to grat- 
ify her pride rather than ceremonies born of her 
strength and joy. Nevertheless, five hundred years 
elapsed between her rise to greatness and the 
beginning of her decline, and her waning was so 
gradual that for two centuries more she seemed 
in outward majesty almost undiminished. 

Throughout her career, she inspired in her sons 
such devotion as passes the patriotism of most 
peoples. They revered her as Queen, they loved 
her as Mother. Although an exclusive oligarchy 
ruled the state, yet every Venetian felt that Venice 
belonged to him. St. Mark was the patron equally 
of doge and dustman. The legend which all be- 
lieved, the pageants in which even the humblest had 
his place, sprang out of the heart of the whole people, 
and symbolized the unity which bound all together. 
And life in Venice, mere physical life, was pleasant 



xv EPILOGUE 329 

to a larger proportion of the inhabitants and during 
more generations than it has been in any other 
city. No wonder, therefore, that when Tintoret, the 
greatest of her painters, in so many respects the 
greatest of all painters, was commissioned to deco- 
rate the vast wall of the Hall of the Great Council, 
wishing to express the feeling of every Venetian 
toward his incomparable city, he chose for his 
subject Paradise. 



CHRONOLOGY AND LIST OF DOGES 

(The names of the Doges are printed in heavy type.) 





VENETIAN HISTORY 


GENERAL 


421 


Legendary founding of 






Venice 




452 


Attila's invasion ; La- 






goon peopled 




466 


Tribunes elected at 






Grado 


476. Fall of Western Empire. 


522 


Cassiodorus at Venice? 


Odoacer, King 


568 


Torcello founded 


of Italy 


584 


Longinus at Venice ; 






general tribunes 


493. Theodoric. Ostrogothic 




elected 


Kingdom 


697 


Paoluccio Anafesto, first 


530-64. Justinian, Eastern 




doge 


Emperor 


709 


Founding of Jesolo ; 


568. Alboin. Lombard King- 




commercial treaty 


dom 




with Luitprand 


622. Hegira of Mahomet 


717 


Marcello Tegalliano 




726 


Orso, " Hypatos " 


732. Patriarchates of Grado 


737-42 


Mastri militum 


and Aquileia 


74-.' 


Deodato, " Hypatos " ; 


separated 




Malamocco capital 




755 


Galla Gaulo 




756 


Domenico Monegario 


772-814. Charlemagne 


764 


Maurizio Galbaio 




787 


Giovanni Galbaio. Frank- 






ish party 


800. Charlemagne crowned 


803 


Venice declared part of 


Emperor at 




Eastern Empire by 


Rome 




treaty of Charlemagne 






and Nicephorus 




331 



332 



A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE 





VENETIAN HISTORY 


GENERAL 


804 


Obelerio Antenorio. Je- 


- 




solo destroyed by 
Heracleans. Obelerio 




809 


destroys Heraclea 
War of Pepin against 
Venice 




810 


Pepin driven back 
Rialto becomes the cap- 
ital 




811 


Agnello Partecipazio. 
First Ducal Palace 




827 
828 


Giustiniano Partecipazio 
St. Mark's body brought 
to Venice ; Church be- 




829 
836 


gun 
Giovanni Partecipazio I 
Pietro Tradonico. War 






with Saracens 




840 
8f>4 
881 
887 


Diploma of Lothair 
Orso Partecipazio I 
Giovanni Partecipazio II 
Pietro Candiano I. De- 


871-901. Alfred the Great 


888 


feat by pirates 
Pietro Tribuno 




900 

912 
932 


Lagoons fortified ; Mag- 
yar invasion 
Orso Partecipazio II 
Pietro Candiano II. Ven- 


912-61. Abderrahman III, 
Caliph of Cordova 




ice invades Istria 




939 
942 


Pietro Partecipazio 
Pietro Candiano III 




944 


Narentine pirates de- 
feated 




959 


Pietro Candiano IV 




971 


Eastern Emperor threat- 






ens 




976 


Doge killed ; Ducal Pal- 
ace burnt 






Pietro Orseolo I 




978 


Vitale Candiano 




979 


Tribuno Memmo 





CHRONOLOGY AND LIST OF DOGES 



333 



VENETIAN HISTORY 



GENERA F, 



Pietro Orseolo II, the 
Great. Treaties with 
East and West 

Pirates conquered. Doge 
Duke of Dalmatia 

First Sposalizio del Mar. 
Emperor Otto visits 
Venice 

Saracens beaten at Bari 

Otto Orseolo 

Pietro Centranico 

Domenico Flabianico 

Domenico Contarini 

Domenico Selvo 

Normans attack Dalma- 
tia 

Normans defeat Vene- 
tians at Casopo 

Vitale Falier. Normans 

- beaten at Corfu. Ve- 
netian rights at Con- 
stantinople confirmed 
by Golden Bull of 
Alexis 

Vitale Michiel I. Expe- 
dition to Levant 

Ordelaffo Falier 

Domenico Michiel. 
Leads expedition to 
the East 

Capture of Tyre 

Pietro Polani 

War with Padua 

Domenico Morosini. War 
with pirates 

Vitale Michiel H 

Zara rebels 

Emperor Manuel op- 
presses Venetians 
in Eastern Empire. 
First public loan. 



1066. Battle of Hastings, Nor- 
man Conquest of 
England 

1072. Normans conquer Sicily 

1073-85. Gregory VII, Hilde- 
brand, pope 



1095-99. First Crusade 



1147. Second Crusade 



334 



A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE 





VENETIAN HISTORY 


GENERAL 




Venice retaliates and 


1176. Battle of Legnano; 




is beaten. Election 


Lombard League 




by sestieri. Origin of 


defeats Barba- 




Great Council 


rossa 


1172 


Sebastiano Ziani 


1170-1221. St. Dominic, Span- 


1177 


Pope Alexander III and 


iard 




Barbarossa at Venice 


1182-1226. St. Francis of As- 


1178 


Orio Malipiero 


sisi 


1189 


Forty created 


1189. Third Crusade 


1192 


Enrico Dandolo. First 


1194-1250. Frederick II of 




ducal promission 


Sicily 


1201 


Contract for Fourth 


1198-1216. Innocent III, pope 




Crusade 


1201-04. Fourth Crusade 


1202 


Expedition sails. Zara 






recaptured 




1204 


Constantinople taken. 






Venetian colonial Em- 






pire established 




1205 


Pietro Ziani 




1211 


Crete colonized 


1215. King John signs Magna 


1221 


Proposed removal to 


Charta 




Constantinople 




1229 


Jacopo Tiepolo. Vene- 


1225-74. Thomas Aquinas 




tian laws codified 




1230 


Crete revolts 




1240 


Siege of Ferrara 




1249 


Marino Morosini 




1253 


Raniero Zeno 




1253 


Quarrel with Genoa at 






Acre 




1258 


Venetians defeat Geno- 






ese near Acre 


li'.V.t. Ezzelino da Romano, 


1264 


Genoese beaten at Tra- 


lord of Padua, 




pani. Treaty with 


dies 




Emperor Paleologos 


1261. Greeks recover Con- 


1268 


Lorenzo Tiepolo. Rules 


stantinople 




for ducal election 


1 IT.* M.'?23. Marco Polo 


1275 


Jacopo Contarini. "War 


12i>r>-i:'.21. Dante 




with Ancona 


1276-1337. Giotto 


1280 


Giovanni Dandolo 




1284 First gold ducat 





CHKONOLOGY AND LIST OF DOGES 



335 



VENETIAN HISTORY 



GENERAL 



Venice under interdict. 
Mint established 

Pietro Gradenigo. War 
with Genoa 

Venetians defeated by 
Genoese at Ayas 

Closing of Great Coun- 
cil. Oligarchy rules 
openly 

Venetians defeated by 
Genoese at Curzola 

Peace with Genoa 

Bocconio's conspiracy 

War over Ferrara ; sec- 
ond interdict 

Conspiracy of Bajamonte 
Tiepolo. Council of 
Ten appointed 

Marin Zorzi. Zara re- 
volts 

Giovanni Soranzo. War 
with Zara 

Francesco Dandolo. First 
sumptuary laws 

First war with Turks 

Council of Ten declared 
permanent 

War with Delia Scala 

Bartolomeo Gradenigo. 
By peace, Venice gets 
Treviso and Bassano 

Andrea Dandolo 

Quarrel with Genoa over 
Crimean trade 

Black Death 

War with Genoa. Geno- 
ese victory at Negro- 
pout 

Battle of the Bosphorus. 
Venetian victory at 
Lojera 



1304-74. Petrarch 
1313-75. Boccaccio 



1353. Genoa cedes herself to 
Viscoiiti 



336 



A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE 





VKNKTIAN HISTORY 


GENERAL 


1354 


Marino Faliero. Vene- 






tians defeated at 






Sapienza 




1355 


Conspiracy and death of 






Faliero 




1355 


Giovanni Gradenigo. 






Peace with Genoa. 






~\Var with Hungary 




1356 


Giovanni Dolfin. Loss 






of Dalmatia 




1361 


Lorenzo Celsi 




1364 


Cretan revolt crushed 




1365 


Marco Cornaro. Southern 






facade of Ducal Palace 




1368 


Andrea Contarini. Tries- 






tine revolt quelled 




1369 


War with the Carraresi 




1373 


Peace ; Venice gains 






Feltre 




1377 


Quarrel with Genoa 






over Cyprus. Venice 






gets Tenedos. War 






with Genoa 




1379 


Venetians defeated at 






Pola ; Venice block- 






aded. Vettor Pisani 






blockades Genoese at 






Chioggia 




1380 


Genoese surrender 




1381 


Peace of Turin 




1382 


Michele Morosini 




1382 


Antonio Venier 




1888 


Argos and Nauplia ac- 






quired. War against 






Carraresi 




1400 


Michele Steno 




1404 


War against Carraresi 




1405 


Venice wins 




140fi 


Expansion on Terra 


1402. Gian Galeazzo Visconti 




Firma 


dies 


1411 


War with Sigismund 





CHRONOLOGY AND LIST OF DOGES 



337 



VENETIAN HISTORY 



GENERAL 



Tommaso Mocenigo 

Battle of Gallipoli ; 
treaty with Sultan 

War with Sigismund 

Friuli acquired 

Francesco Foscari. Peo- 
ple have no part in 
election of doge 

Hall of Great Council 

Venice joins Florence 
against Visconti 

Carmagnola appointed 
general 

Brescia acquired 

Battle of Maclodio 

Peace; Venice acquires 
Bergamo 

Carmagnola tried and 
executed 

Venice granted investi- 
ture by Emperor 

Gattamelata, general ; 
fleet on Lake Garda 

Peace with Visconti 

Colleoni 

Turks take Constanti- 
nople 

Peace of Lodi with Milan 

Foscari deposed 

Pasquale Malipiero 

Cristoforo Moro 

War with Turks 

Turks take Negropont 

Niccolo Tron 

NiccoloMarcello. Turks 
in Friuli 

Pietro Mocenigo 

Andrea Vendramin. 

Turks in Friuli 

Giovanni Mocenigo. 
First stone bridge 



1447. Death of Filippo Maria 
Viscouti 



144&-92. Lorenzo de' Medici 



1450-66. Francesco Sforza, 
Duke of Milan 



338 



A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE 





VKXETIAX HISTORY 


<H:NKRAL 


1479 


Peace with Turks 




1483 


War with Ferrara ; third 






interdict 




1484 


Peace ; Venice secures 






Rovigo and Polusiue 




1485 


Marco Barbarigo 




1486 


Agostino Barbarigo 


1486. Dias rounds Cape of 


1488 


Venice takes Cyprus 


Good Hope 




from Caterina Cornaro 


1492. Columbus disc-overs 


1495 


Venice joins league 


America. Moors 




against Charles VIII ; 


in Spain con- 




French beaten at For- 


quered by Span- 




novo 


iards 


1498 


Venice ally of Louis XII. 


1492-1503. Alexander VI, Bor- 




War with Turkey 


gia, pope 


1499 


Turks victorious at 


1493-1593. Maximilian I, em- 




Sapienza. Venice ac- 


peror 




quires Cremona 


1497. Vasco da Gaiua reaches 


1501 


Leonardo Loredano 


India 


1503 


Peace with Turks. Ven- 


1498-1515. Louis XII, King of 




ice encroaches in 


France 




Romagna 


1503-13. Julius II, Delia Ro- 


1504 


Pope organizes league 


vere, pope 




against Venice 




1507 


War with Maximilian 




1508 


League of Cambrai 




1509 


Defeat at Agnadello ; 






fourth interdict ; 






mainland lost 




1510 


Venice makes peace 






with pope 




1511 


Death of Giorgione 


1512. Battle of Ravenna 


1512 


Mainland possessions 


1513-21. Leo X, Medici, pope 




voluntarily return to 






Venice 




1513 


French army at Mal- 


1515-47. Francis I, King of 




ghera. Treaty of Blois 


France 


1515 


Venetians assist French 


1516. Death of Ferdinand, 




at battle nf Mariunano 


King of Spain 


1518 


Truce with Emperor 




1521 


Antonio Grimani 


15 19-56. Charles V, emperor 



CHRONOLOGY AND LIST OF DOGES 



339 



VENETIAN HISTORY 



GENERAL 



Andrea Gritti. Treaty 
with Charles V 

Peace of Bologna 

Third Turkish War. 
Venice loses islands 
in Levant 

Alliance of Venice, Pope 
and Emperor against 
Turks 

Pietro Lando. Council 
of Three created 

Peace with Turks ; Ven- 
ice loses Nauplia 

Francesco Donato 

Marcantonio Trevisano 

Francesco Venier 

Lorenzo Priuli. Uscoc- 
chi pirates infest Dal- 
matia 

Girolamo Priuli 

Pietro Loredano 

Alvise Mocenigo I. War 
with Turks 

Battle of Lepanto. 
Fam agosta surrenders 

Peace with Turks. 
Venice cedes Cyprus 

Plague. Titian dies 

Sebastiano Venier. Du- 
cal Palace partly burnt 

Niccolo da Ponte. Dis- 
pute with pope 

Conflict between Ten 
and Great Council 

Pasquale Cicogna 

Rial to Bridge built 

Tintoret dies 

Marino Grimani 

Quarrel with pope 

Leonardo Donato. Inter- 
dict. Sarpi appointed 



1525. Battle of Pavia; Fran- 

cis I defeated 

1526. Holy League 



1540. Pope sanctions Loyola's 
Order of Jesuits 
1545-63. Council of Trent 



155G-98. Philip II, King of 
Spain 



1559-1603. Elizabeth, Queen 
of England 

1561-1626. Francis Bacon 
1504-1616. Shakespeare 



1588. Destruction of Spanish 

Armada 
1589-1610. Henry IV, King of 

France 



1605. Paul V, Borghese, pope 



340 



A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE 





VENETIAN HISTORY 


QnxEA.ii 




counsel of the Repub- 






lic. Hostile religious 


1599-1658. Cromwell 




orders expelled 




1607 


Agreement arranged. 






Attempted assassina- 






tion of Sarpi 




1612 


Marcantonio Memmo 




1615 


Giovanni Bembo 




1618 


Niccolo Donate. Span- 


1618-48. Thirty Years' War 




ish conspiracy 




1618 


Antonio Priuli 




1622 


Foscarini unjustly exe- 


1620. Pilgrims land at Plym- 




cuted 


outh 


1623 


Francesco Contarini. 






Death of Sarpi 




1625 


Giovanni Cornaro I 




1625 


Zeno arraigns Council of 






Ten 




1630 


Niccolo Contarini 




1631 


Francesco Erizzo 


1643-1715. Louis XIV, King 


1645 


Beginning of Great 


of Frauce 




Turkish War 




1646 


Francesco Molin 




1655 


Carlo Contarini 




1656 


Francesco Cornaro. 






Siege of Candia begins 




1556 


Bertucci Valier 




1658 


Giovanni Pesaro 




1659 


Domenico Contarini 




1668 


Peace with Turks ; Ven- 






ice cedes Crete 




1675 


Niccolo Sagredo 




1676 


Luigi Contarini 


1683. Turks repulsed from 


1684 


Marcantonio Giustinian 


Vienna 




Morosiui conquers Mo- 


1688. English revolution 




rea 


lti!>7. Turks defeated at Xciita 


1688 


Francesco Morosini. 


Kill!). Peace of Carlowit/ 





Athens bombarded 


1701-13. War of Spanish Suc- 


1694 


Silvestro Valier 


cession 


1700 


Alvise Mocenigo II 




1709 


Giovanni Cornaro II 





CHRONOLOGY AND LIST OF DOGES 



341 



VENETIAN HISTORY 



GENERAL 



171(5 
1722 
1732 
1735 
1741 
1752 
1762 
1763 
1770 
1779 

1784 

178!) 
1797 



Loss of the Morea 
Alvise Mocenigo III 
Carlo Ruzzini 
Alvise Pisani 
Pietro Grimani 
Francesco Loredan 
Marco Foscarini 
Alvise Mocenigo IV 
Death of G. B. Tiepolo 
Paolo Renier. Reforms 

attempted 

Emo bombards Tunis 
Lodovico Manin 
May 12. Government 
votes to dissolve at 
Napoleon's command. 
By peace of Campo 
Formio (Oct. 17) 
France cedes Venice 
to Austria 



1718. Peace of Passarovitz 
1707-93. Carlo Goldoni 



1775-82. American Revolu- 
tion 

1789-95. French Revolution 

1789-97. George Washington, 
first President 
of the United 
States 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

**ROMAXIX. Storia Documentata di Venezia. Venice, 

1853. 10 vols. Indispensable. 
** MOLHEKTI. Storia di Venezia nella Vita Privata. First 

ed. Turin, 1880. 
** H. F. BROWN. Venice : An Historical Sketch of the 

Republic. London, 1893. An excellent specimen of 

historical anatomy. 
DABU. Storia della Republica di Venezia. Capolago, 1837. 

11 vols. Italian translation with Ranke's comment. 

D. is anti- Venetian. 
CHRONICLES. I. Cronache Veneziane Antichissime. Edited 

by Monticolo. Rome, 1890. 

II. Cronaca delta Altinate ; * Cronaca di M. da Ca- 
nale. Archivio Storico Italiano. Vol. VIII. Florence, 
1845. 

III. * Chronicon of Andrea Dandolo. Muratori 
(Her urn Itnl. Scriptor.), Vol. XII. 

IV. Sanudo. Vitae Dttcum. Muratori. Vol. XXII. 
V. Ville-Hardouin. La Conquestede Constantinople. 

DIARIES. Sanudo, 58 vols. ; Malipiero ; Priuli. 

* GFRORER. Geschichte Venedigs bis zum Jahre 1048. Graz, 

1872. 

MARIN-. Storia Civile e Politica del Commercio del Vene- 
ziani. 10 vols. Venice, 1798. 

* HETD. Histoire du Commerce du Levant au Moyen-Age. 

2 vols. Leipzig, 1885. 

* W. C. HAZLITT. The Venetian Republic. 2 vols. 1900. 

Contains many interesting essays on manners, customs, 
and institutions. 

343 



344 A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE 

* MUSATTI. Venezia e le sue Conquiste nel Medio-Evo. 

Padua, 1881. 

* MUSATTI. La Storia Politico, di Venezia. Padua, 1897. 

Valuable for its references to rare works and original 

sources. 
WIEL. Venice ("Story of the Nations" series). London, 

1894. 

MOLMENTI. La Dogaressa. Turin, 1884. 
MOLMENTI. Studi e Eicerchi. Turin, 1892. 
F. C. HODGSON. The Early History of Venice (to 1204). 

London, 1901. 

YKIARTE. Venise. Paris, 1878. 
YRIARTE. La Vie cTun Patricien de Venise. Paris. 
** SARPI. Opere. 
*BIANCHI GIOVINI. Eiografia di Fra Paolo Sarpi. Zurich, 

1836. 
FIXE ARTS. Vasari's Lives; Eidolfi's Meraviglie dell" 1 Arte, 

1648 ; Ruskin's Stones of Venice ; C. E. Norton's Church 

Building in the Middle Ages ; the works of Crowe and 

Cavalcaselle, of Taine, Morelli, and of Symonds. 
Among the Renaissance historians of Venice were Paruta, 
Doglioni, Bembo, Contarini, and Gianotti. * Sansovino's 
works Del Governo de 1 Regni and Venezia, Citta Nobi- 
lissima are important for their description of the city and 
its institutions in the sixteenth century. James Howell's A 
Survay of the Signorie of Venice, 1651, gives a description 
at the middle of the seventeenth century and may be com- 
pared with De la Houssaye, who wrote about 1670. Trav- 
elers' accounts throw many sidelights on Venice ; but even 
a partial list, beginning with Petrarch and Montaigne, would 
run through many pages. In English, the best sketches by 
recent writers are W. D. Howells's Venetian Days and 
H. F. Brown's Life on the Lagoons. 



INDEX 



Acre, 81, 83. 
Actium, battle of, 2(50. 
Adriatic, marriage of, 322-324. 
Agnadello, battle of, 204. 
Aix, treaty of, 22. 
Alaric, 3. 
Albiola, 21, 32. 
Alboin, 14. 
Alcibiades, 167. 
Aldus, 232. 
Aleppo, 89. 

Alexander III, pope, 53, 57, 
2i 17, 323. 

IV. 83. 

VI, 193, 201. 

Alexandria, 25, 27. 
Alexis (Coinnenos), 64. 

, emperor, 89. 

Alimpato, L., 25. 

Ali Pasha, 2tK). 

Amadeus VI, of Savoy, 157. 

Amalti, 50. 

America, 50, 197. 

Anafe.;',), first doge, 15, 23, 35. 

Ancoiia, 190. 

Andros, 72. 

Aquileia, 3, 16, 54, 143, 157. 

A ration, 89, 139. 

Architecture, 233-237. 

Ardisouio, N., 25. 

Ariosto, 231. 

Arpa'd, 32. 

Arrengo, 13, 40, 41, 97, 174. 

Arsenal, 33, 91, 222. 

Aruiidel, Lady, 291. 



Ascalon, 48. 

Ascension Day festival, 323- 

324. 

Asolo, 196. 
Athens, siege of, 303. 
Attila, 3, 4^5. 
Austria, 91, 134, 143, 157, 314, 

317. 

Avogadors, 173, 214, 217, 219. 
Ayas, battle of, 137. 

Bacon, Francis, 274. 

Badoer, ducal family, 25, 29, 

39, 112. 
Bagdad, 90. 
Bailo, 74, 84, 256, 295. 
Bajazet, sultan, 183. 
Baldwin I, of Flanders, 69, 71. 

II, 84. 

Banking, 226-227. 
Barbarian invasion, 3. 
Barbarossa, Chaireddin, 255. 
Barbary States, 92. 
Barberini, cardinal, 287. 
Barnabotti, 306, 310. 
Baronio, cardinal, 276. 
Barozzi, J., 72. 
Baseio, M., admiral, 137. 
Basil, emperor, 37. 
Bassano, 124, 164. 
Beauty, spirit of, 246, 32(i. 
Bedmar, marquis of, 288, 289. 
Belisarius, 10. 
Bellarmine, cardinal, 274. 
Bell casting, 93. 



345 



346 



A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE 



Bellini, Gentile, 238, 245. 

, Giovanni, 238-239. 

, Jacopo, 238. 

Belluno, 37, 164. 
Benedict XIV, 305. 
Bergamo, 177, 182. 
Black Sea, 69. 
Blois, treaty of, 206. 
Bocconio conspiracy, 111-112. 
Bologna, peace of, 210. 
Bon, Bartolorameo, architect, 

235. 

Borborino, L., 86. 
Borghese, Caraillo, see Paul V. 
Borromeo, Carlo, cardinal, 273. 
Bosphorus, battle of, 139-140. 
Bragadin, G., informer, 290. 
Bragadino, Marcantouio, 258- 

259, 262. 

Brescia, 176, 182, 206. 
Brondolo, 21, 32, 152, 315. 
Browning, Robert, 243. 
Buda, 254. 

Buono of Malamocco, 25. 
Byron, 132. 
Byzantium, see Constantinople. 

Cabinet, 90. 

Cabot, 197. 

Caesar, Julius, 3, 20. 

Cairo, 89. 

Calderon, 210. 

Caloprini, traitor, 34. 

Cambrai, League of, 201, 269. 

Campo Formio, treaty of, 316. 

Campofregoso, doge, 145. 

Canale, M. da, chronicler, 49, 

319-322. 

, N. da, admiral, 191. 

Canaletto, 244. 

Candia, city of, 297, 299, 300- 

303. 

, island, 69, 74, 75, 88, 127, 

137, 295, 304. 



Candiano, ducal family, 29, 36, 

39. 

Canea, captured, 297. 
Cantacuzenos, John, 139. 
Cape of Good Hope rounded, 

197. 
Capo, d'Anzio, battle of, 145. 

, d'Istria, 129. 

Capua, Peter of, 62, 63. 
Carlowitz, peace of, 304. 
Carmagnola, 175-182. 
Carpaccio, 239. 
Carrara, tyrants of Padua, 12.">, 

134, 143, 155, 157, 160-164. 
Cartbage, 46. 

Cassiodorus, description of Ven- 
ice, 9, 10. 
Castelbaklo, 124. 
Cavriana, peace of, 182. 
Cephalonia, battle near, 43. 
Cerigo, 72. 
Cervantes, 210, 260. 
Champagne, Thibault of, 60. 
Charlemagne, 20, 22, 23, 24, 33. 
Charles V, emperor, 207, 208. 

210. 

- VIII, of France, 199. 
China, 90. 
Chioggia, 21, 32, 147, 149, 151- 

155. 

Chioggian war, 147-157. 
Christopher, patriarch of 

Grado, 14. 
Chronicles, early, 35. 
Chrysobol, 37. 
Cicisbeo, 312. 

Civilization, Venetian, 212. 
Clement V, pope, 119. 

- VIII, 272. 
Closing of Great Council, 102- 

106. 

Cognac, League of, 208. 
Coinage, 171. 
College, 214. 



INDEX 



347 



Colleoni, condottiere, 181, 237. 
Colonies, Venetian, 69, 74, 125. 

103, 21ti, 262, 295, 296. 
Colonua, Marcantonio, Papal 

admiral, 260. 
Color, Venetian painting, 244- 

245. 

Columbus, 197. 
Comacchio, 32. 
Commerce, 23, 27, 30, 37, 38. 85, 

86, 87, 89-92, 94, 96, 137, 168- 

171, 1S4, 191, 198,216,255. 
Comnenos, Alexis, 64. 

, Isaac, 64. 
Concordat, 268. 
Conspiracies, Bocconio, 111; 

Tiepolo, 112 ; Faliero, 130. 
Constantine Paleologos, 184. 
Constantinople, 10, 27, 34, 35, 

37, 40, 53, 54, 65, 66-68, 75-78 ; 

taken by Turks, 183-184. 
Consuls, 91. 
Contariui family, 102. 

, Andrea, doge, 144, 172. 

, Francesco, doge, 308, 309. 

, G., reformer, 310. 

Cordova, 30. 

Corfu, 53. 72, 255. 

Corinth, 189. 

Cornaro, Cateriua, 196-197. 

, Giacomo, 196. 
Correctors, 100, 215, 309. 
Corruption, 186. 
Council, Ducal, 97, 98, 214, 215, 

217, 308. 

of Forty, 214. 

, Great, 56, 98, 99, 100, 

101-107, 115, 213, 223, 297, 

298, 306-310. 
of Ten, 115-116, 120, 187, 

L'14. iilC>. 'JIT. 218, 219, 2(59, 

290, 2! H. 292. :>-310, 312. 
of Three, 218, 224, 306, 

312. 



Crete, see Candia. 
Croatia, 30, 39. 
Crotona, battle of, 32. 
Crusades, 45, 58. 
Curzola, 38, 118, 137. 
Cyclades, 9, 69, 72. 
Cyprus, 195; taken by Turks, 
257-259. 

Dalmatia, 35, 38, 61, 88, 299, 

314. 

D'Alviano, general, 204. 
Damascus, 89, 91. 
Dandolo, Andrea, admiral, 137, 

138. 

, Andrea, doge, 128. 

, Enrico, doge, 59, 61, 62, 67, 

69, 70, 98, 110, 117, 221. 

, Francesco, doge, 123. 

, Giacomo, 86. 

, Giovanni, doge, 103. 

, Xiccolo, general, 258. 

Dante, 275. 

Daphnusia, 84. 

Debt, 55, 170, 182, 226, 302. 

Deodato, doge, 19. 

Dias, navigator, 197. 

Doge, election of, 99, 101, 174, 

319-322. 

Donati, M., traitor, 113. 
Donate, patriarch of Grado, 

16. 
, Leonardo, doge, 272. 

273. 
Doria, Gian Andrea, 258. 

, Lambo, 137. 

, Luciano, 146. 

, Paganino, 139, 141. 

, Pietro, 147, 149, 154. 

, Uberto, admiral, 137. 

Ducal Palace, 25, 33, 36, 174, 

j:U-235. 
Ducats, 93, 226. 
Durazzo, 43. 



348 



A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE 



Eastern Empire, 11, 18 n., 20, 

22, 34, 35, 37, 43, 47, 51, 52, 

53, 54, 55, 57, 64, 66. 
Ecclesiastical courts, 122, 26S. 
Edward I, of England, 88. 
Egypt, 27, 38, 92, 198. 
Election of doge, 99, 101, 174, 

319, 322. 
Elizabeth, queen of England, 

209. 
Emo, Angelo, 305. 

, P , 147. 
Empire, Venetian, 69. 
Eneti, 2. 

England, 50, 88, 92, 126, 200. 
Este, O. d', 124. 
Etruscans, 2. 
Eugene, Prince, 304. 
Exarchate, 10. 
Ezzelino da Romano, 80, 87. 

Falier, A., 77. 

Faliero, M., doge, 130-133. 

, O., doge, 51. 

Famagosta, 258-259. 

Feltre, 1(54. 

Ferrara, 54, 118, 192, 231. 

Feudalism, 41. 

Fieschi, Genoese admiral, 

145. 

Finances, 55, 226, 297, 302. 
Fine Arts, 233. 
Flabiauico, D., doge, 40. 
Flanders, trade with, 92. 

, Baldwin of, 69, 71. 

, barons of, 58. 

Florence, 124, 168, 169. 
Fornovo, battle of, 199. 
Forty, Civil, 219. 

, Criminal, 219. 

Foscari, F., doge, 169, 172, 186- 

188, 218. 

, Jac-opo, 187. 

Foscarini, Antonio, 291, 307. 



Foscarini, G., admiral, 261. 

. M., doge, 313. 
Fossa Xuova, battle of, 134. 
France, 27, 30, 50, 88, 92, 253, 

314-317. 

, barons of, 5-S, 61, 62. 
Francis I, of France, 207, 208, 

210. 

Franks, 20. 

Frederick I, Barbarossa, empe- 
ror, 53, 54, 57, ">!.'."). 

II, of Sicily, 79-84, 87. 
Friuli, 32, 54, 166, 200. 
Fulgenzio, friar, 28(5, 287. 
Fulk preaches Fourth Crusade, 

58. 

Galbaii, ducal family, 39. 
Galleys, equipment, 142-143. 
Gallipoli, 184. 
Gama, Vasco da, 197. 
Garda, Lake, 2, 181. 
Gastaldi elected, 6. 
Gaulo, Galla, doge, 19. 
Genoa, 50, 79, 81, 82, 84-87, 118, 

129, 130, 133, 135, 137, 138, 

140, 147-157, 193. 
Germany, 88, 90. 
Gerson, 278. 
Ghibellines, 80. 
(iior-ione, 239-240, 241. 
Gisello, conspirator, 131. 
Giustiniaui, T., 148, 149. 
Glass-working, 93. 
Goethe, 241. 
Golden Book, 106, 298. 
Golden Bull, 37. 
Goldoni, 231, 311. 
Gonzaga, 124. 
Gozzi.L'.".!. 

Gradenigo, Marco, 86. 
, P., doge, 103, 112, 117, 118, 

119 1M4. 

Grade, 6, 14, 16, :',<>, :>i, 267. 



INDEX 



349 



Greece, 43. 

Greek Empire, or Emperor, see 

Eastern Empire. 
Gregory VII, pope, 41. 
Grimaldi, A., Genoese admiral, 

140, 154. 

, Luca, Genoese admiral, 81. 

Grimaui, Antonio, admiral, 

200. 

Guarco, Genoese doge, 145. 
Guardi, painter, 244. 
Guilds, 93, 320-322. 
Guiscard, Robert, 43, 44. 
, Roger, 53. 

Haifa, 47. 

Hapsburgs, 88, 134, 316. 

Henry IV, of France, 282. 

Heraclea, 6, 15, 19. 

Heresy, _'- > . 

Hildebrand, pope, 41. 

Holland, 247, 294. 

Holy League, 206. 

Holy Roman Empire, 22, 23, 28, 

37, 88, 193. 

Houses, New and Old, 102 n. 
Hungary, 51, 88, 118, 130, 134, 

144, 157, 254. 
Huns, 3. 

Hunyadi, John, 189. 
Huss, John, 166. 
Hwaklerada, dogaressa, 36. 

Illyria, 3. 

Index, 275. 

India, 50, 72, 197. 

Industries, Venetian, 93, 168, 

170. 

Innocent III, 58, 65, 69. 
Inquisition, 222, L'T."). 
Inquisitors, on the Defunct 

Doge, 100. 
- of State, the "Three," 

218, 224. 



Interdict, 118, 192, 204, 277-283. 
Investiture, 86. 
Ionian archipelago, 69. 
Ireland, 126. 
Iron industry, 93. 
Istria, 9, 30, 34, 315. 

Jenson,232. 

Jerusalem, 47, 136. 

Jesolo, 15, 20. 

Jesuits, 209, 265, 275, 277, 282, 

284,300. 

Jingo party, 167. 
John, Don, of Austria, 260. 
Judiciary system, 111, 180-181, 

219. 
Julius II, 201, 202, 203, 204, 208, 

269. 

Junta, 214, 224. 
Justinian, 10. 

Kaffa, 227. 
Kairwan, 89. 
Konigsmark, general, 303. 

La Feuillade, duke of, 302. 
Latin conquest of Constanti- 
nople, 65-67. 

Empire, 81, 84, 87. 

Laws, 110, 221. 
Legnano, battle of, 57. 
Leoben, peace of, 314. 
Leopardo, sculptor, 237. 
Lepanto, battle of, 259-260. 
Libraries, 232. 
Licentiousness, 229. 
Lido, 61, 149, 299. 
Limoges, 27. 
Lisbon, 198. 
Literature, 230-231. 
Liutprand, 15. 
Lojera, battle of, 140. 
Lombard League, 53. 
Lombard!, architects, 235-236. 



350 



A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE 



Lombards, 14, 18, 20. 
Lombardy, 168. 
Longhena, architect, 236, 238. 
Longhi, painter, 244. 
Longinus, 11. 
Loredan, Alvise, 189. 
Loredano, Antonio, 191. 

, Leonardo, doge, 203, 239. 

, Pietro, doge, 215. 

Lothair, 33, 36. 

Lonis IX, of France, 88. 

XII, of France, 199, 202, 207. 

XV, of France, 313. 

II, of Hungary, 254. 

Loyola, founder of Jesuits, 

209, 265. 

Luca, battle of, 130. 
Lucca, 124, 169. 
Luther, 265. 

Machiavelli, 205. 
Maclodio, battle of, 177. 
Magnificence, Venetian, 325. 
Magyars, 32, 33, 185. 
Malamocco, 6, 19, 20, 21, 22, 

147, 299. 

Malatesta, condottiere, 177. 
Malghera, 207, 315. 
Malipiero, heroism of, 297. 
Mallono, P., Genoese admiral, 

82. 

Malta, Knights of, 295. 
Malvasia, 255. 
Manfredi, friar, 285. 
Manfredonia, 156. 
Manin, Lodovico, doge, 315, 316. 
Mantua, 2, 124, 175. 
Manuel, Eastern Emperor, 53, 

54. 

Marignano, battle of, 207. 
Marine, mercantile, 91. 
Marlborough, 35. 
Marriage of Adriatic, 322-324. 
Marseilles, 27. 



Marsilio, 279. 

Martinengo, 257. 

Maruffo, Genoese admiral, 155, 

156. 

^fa.'<tro militum, 19. 
Maximilian, emperor, 199, 202. 
Merchants, Venetian, 229. 
Mexico, 73. 
Michiel, Antonio, 190. 

, Domeuico, doge, 48-52. 

, Vitale I, doge, 47. 

, Vitale II, doge, 55. 

Milan, 123, 160, 193, 199, 210. 
Minotti, 297. 

, G., councilor, 315. 

Mint, 226. 

Mocenigo, Lazzaro, 301. 

, Luigi, 301. 

, Pietro, 150. 

, Tommaso, doge, 168-172, 

174, 235, 237. 
Modon, 303. 
Mohacs, battle of, 254. 
Mohammed II, 70. 
Monegario, doge, 19. 
Montebaldo, 181, 182. 
Moutferrat, Boniface of, 60, 

69, 72. 

Moors, see Saracens. ' 
Morals, 229, 311, 312. 
Morea, 303-305. 
Morosini, Francesco, doge, 215, 

228, 301, 303, 304, 305. 
, Michele, doge, 172-173, 

237. 

, Ruggiero, admiral, 137. 

, T., Eastern patriarch, 

69. 
, T., admiral, heroism of, 

300-301. 
Murzuphle, 66. 
Muscorno, 291. 
Mustiipha, Turkish general, 

259. 



INDEX 



Naples, 199. 

Napoleon Bonaparte, 314-317. 

Ill, 42, 73. 

Narses, 11. 

Nassi, vizier, 256. 

Nauplia, 255, 303, 304. 

Naval wars, magnitude of, 142. 

Negropont, 55, 69, 139, 191, 300. 

Nelson, 142. 

New Civil Forty, 219. 

Nicopolis, battle of, 183. 

Nicosia, 258. 

Normans, 43, 44, 53. 

Novara, battle of, 207. 

Office-holders, 222-223. 
Oligarchy, 30, 41, 107-109. 
Olivolo, or S. Pietro in Cas- 

tello, 33. 
Ommiyades, 30. 
Orseolo II, doge, 37, 233, 322. 

Otto, 39. 

Orso Ipato, doge, 18. 

Badoer I, doge, 36. 

Ossuna, duke of, 288, 289. 
Otto II, emperor, 33, 36. 
Ill, emperor, 39. 

Padua, 2, 4. 54, 80, 123, 124, 

128, 160, 161, 204. 

, University of, 165, 222. 
Pageants, 319-.",24. 
Painting, 238-248. 
Palaces, Venetian, 235-236. 
Paleologos, Constantino, 183. 

, Michael, 84, 86, 87. 

Palermo, 89. 
Palestine, 47. 
Palladio, architect, 236. 
Papacy, 22, 23, 79, 118, 120, 

193, 269, 283, 293, 298. 
Paradise, Tintoret's painting 

of, 329. 
Pareuzo, 141. 



Paris, 158. 
Parma, 210. 
Partecipazio, doge, 25. 
Parthenon, destroyed, 303. 
Passarovitz, peace of, 304. 
Patriarch, of Aquileia, 16. 

of Grado, 14, 16, 18, 267. 
Patrician, training of, 223. 
Patron saint, importance of, 

25-27. 
Paul III, pope, 210. 

V, 272, 275, 276, 280. 

Veronese, 243-244. 

Pavia, 27 ; battle of, 208. 
Pelagius II, 16. 
Pelestrina, 21,32, 147. 
Penal system, 220. 
Pepin, 21, 24. 
Pepper, 90, 93. 
Persia, 46. 

Pesaro, Giovanni, doge, 238. 
Pestilence, 39, 55, 129. 
Peter the Hermit, 46. 
Petrarch, 135, 232. 
Philip II, of Spain, 209. 
IV, of Spain, 246. 

Augustus, of France, 64. 

Piacenza, 210. 
Piccinino, condottiere, 176. 
Pierre, Jacques, spy, 288. 
Pirates, 30, 34, 35, 38, 78, 294, 

305. 

Pisani, G., reformer, 310. 
, Niccolo, 139, 141. 

, Vettor, 144, 145, 148, 151- 

157. 

Pisans, 47, 50, 79, 169. 
Pitigliano, general, 204. 
Pitt, William, 119. 
Pius II, 189. 

Ill, 201. 
Plague, Great, 129. 
Po River, 2, 9. 
Pola, battle of, 146. 



352 



A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE 



Polesine, 192. 
Polo, Marco, 138. 
Polytheism, Roman Catholic, 

26. 

Porcelain, 93. 
Portolungo, 141. 
Portugal, 50, 92. 
Postal service, 27. 
Pregadi, 213. 
Printing, 232. 
Prisons, 220. 
Procurators of St. Mark, 

214. 

Promission, ducal, 100. 
Protectionism , 227. 
Protestants in Venice, 222. 
Providence, vote of, 78. 
Prussia, 73. 

Punishments, English, 220 n. 
Puritans, 4. 

Querini, family, 72, 112. 

, admiral, 141. 

, M., conspirator, 113. 

Ragusa, 38. 

Ravenna, 9, 18, 21, 186, 233. 

Reality, Venetian painting, 

245-246. 

Reformation, 264-266. 
Religious tolerance, 222. 
Rembrandt, 246, 248. 
Rents, value of, 170. 
Rhadagasius, 3. 
Rhodes, 47. 
Rialto, 4, 22. 

Richard I, of England, 64. 
Robespierre, 225. 
Roger II, king of Sicily, 53. 
Roman, Church, 16, 17, 26, 29, 

184, 203, 205, 264-267. 

Empire, fall of, 3, 7, 8. 

Rome, 4ti. 

Romulus Augustulus, 8. 



Rossi, A.de', tyrant of Parma, 

124. 

Roveredo, 182. 
Rovigo, 192. 
Rustico of Torcello, 25. 
Ruzzini, Venetian admiral, 139. 

Sages, 21(3. 

Sagorninus, 35. 

St. Mark, 18; body brought to 

Venice, 25. 
St. Mark's, Church, 26, 36, 59, 

157, 233-234. 

Place, 33. 

St. Paul, 279. 

St. Peter, 18. 

St. Theodore, 26. 

Saladin, 58. 

Salonica, 184. 

Salt industry, 10, 93. 

Sammichele, architect, 236. 

S. Pietro in Volta. _':.'. 

Sansovino, architect, 236, 237. 

Sanudo, Marco, 72. 

Sapienza, battles of, 130, 200. 

Saracens, 31, 32, 38, 46, 58, 89, 

209. 

Sarpi, Fra Paolo, 231, 2T.'i--_ ) ,S7. 
Savoy, dukes of, 175, 288. 
Scaligers of Verona, 123, 124, 

128, 160. 

Scamozzi, architect, 236. 
Scanderbeg, 189. 
Schiavo, Venetian captain, 137, 

138. 

Sculpture, 237. 

Scutari (Albania), siege of, 191. 
Selim, sultan, 256. 
Selvo, doge, 43, 98. 
Senate, or Pregadi, 213, 215. 
Sequin, 226. 

Sette Pozzi, battle of, 86. 
Sforza, condottiere, 177, 194. 
Shakespeare, 242. 



INDEX 



353 



Shipbuilding, 91, 92. 

Shipping, 170. 

Sicily, 38, 43, 46, 7!), 80, 193. 

Sigismnnd, emperor, 166. 

Signory, 215. 

Silk industry, 93. 

Slaves, 31, 90, 227. 

Slavonians, 31. 

Slavs, 31. 

Solyman, sultan, 254-256. 

Soranzo, C., doge, 119. 

Sottomarina, 151. 

Spain, 46, 50, 89. 

Spalatro, 38. 

Spanish, ascendency, 209. 

conspiracy, 288-292. 
Spinola, admiral, 137. 
Sporades, 69. 
Stampalia, 72. 
Statutes, 221. 
Steno, M., doge, 131, 173. 
Stephen, king of Hungary, 39, 

51. 

Sweden, 294. 
Syria, 38. 

Tana, 227. 

Tasso, Torquato, 231. 

Taxation, 94. 

Tegalliauo, doge, 16. 

Tenedos, 144, 157. 

Terra Firma, possessions on, 
122, 182, 186, 192, 253, 314. 

Theodoric, 8, 9, 10. 

Theodosius, emperor, 31. 

Thessaly, 69. 

Thirty Years' War, 293. 

Tiepolo, Bajamonte, conspir- 
acy, 112-115. 
, G. B., painter, 244. 
, Jacopo, doge, 100, 110, 221. 

, Lorenzo, doge, 319. 

Tintoret, 241, 242-243, 244, 245, 
246, 329. 

2A 



Titian, 240-242, 246, 248. 

Toledo, Pedro de, 288, 289. 

Torcello, 14. 

Torture, 219. 

Toulouse, 29. 

Trade routes, 90. 

Trading fleets, 92. 

Tradonico, doge, 35. 

Trafalgar, 260. 

Trapani, battles near, 85, 136. 

Trebizond, 69. 

Trevisano, Giovanni, admiral, 

86. 

Treviso, 37, 124, 157, 164, 204. 
Trial of prisoners, 111, 219. 
Tribunes, 6. 
Tribuno, P., doge, 36. 
Trieste, 24, 157. 
Tripoli, 136. 
Turca, R. della, 83. 
Turks, 46, 136, 183, 184,185,189- 

191, 200, 254-262, 294, 296-303. 
Tuscany, 36. 
Twelve towns, 12 n. 
Tyre, 47, 48, 49, 51; naval 

battle near, 82. 

United States, 73. 
Urban VIII, 287. 

Vaux, abbot of, 65. 

Velasquez, 210, 248. 

Veneti, 2. 

Venetia, original inhabitants, 2. 

VENICK. Site, 1 ; original 
inhabitants, 2; Attila's in- 
vasion, 4; tribunes, 6; Cas- 
siodorus's description, 9; 
relations with Eastern Em- 
pire, 11, 12; new tribunes, 
13; arrengo, 13; Lombard 
invasion, 14; first doge, 14; 
church quarrel, 16; ecclesi- 
astical independence, 17 ; 



354 



A SHORT HISTORY OF VENICE 



captures Ravenna, 18; mastro 
militum in place of doges, 
19; dogeship restored, 19; 
spared by Charlemagne, 20; 
Frankish party, 20-21; Pe- 
pin's siege, 21; capital trans- 
ferred to Rialto, 22 ; building 
of city, 25; St. Mark patron, 
25-26; growth of oligarchy, 
30 ; war with Saracens, 31 ; 
Istria, 34; naval growth, 34; 
Orseolo the Great, 37; con- 
stitutional changes under 
Flabianico, 40; war with 
Guiscard, 44; First Crusade, 
47; siege of Tyre, 48-49; 
expansion of trade with Le- 
vant, 49-50; Frederick Bar- 
barossa, 53 ; Emperor Manuel 
oppresses Venetians, 54; dis- 
aster, 55; creation of Great 
Council, 56; pope and em- 
peror at Venice, 57 ; Fourth 
Crusade, 59; Zara taken, 64; 
conquest of Constantinople, 
65-66 ; partition of Eastern 
Empire, 69; results of con- 
quest, 72-73; proposed re- 
moval of capital, 75-78; 
Frederick II, 79-80; quarrel 
with Genoa at Acre, 81; 
Genoese at Constantinople, 

84, 85 ; wars with Genoese, 

85, 86; imperial growth, 89- 
94 ; stability, 97 ; constitu- 
tional changes, 97-100; Clos- 
ing of Great Council, 100-107 ; 
conspiracies of Bocconio, 111, 
and Tiepolo, 112; Council of 
Ten, 115; Interdict, 118; re- 
cuperation, 120; acquires 
Treviso, 124; colonial system, 
125-127; Great Plague, 12!); 
Faliero's conspiracy, 130; 



naval wars with Genoa, 136- 
140; defeat at Sapienza, 141 ; 
coalition against, 145 ; Chiog- 
gian war, 147-157; Carra- 
resi destroyed, 161-163; 
acquisitions on Terra Firma, 
164-165 ; Jingoism, 167 ; Mo- 
cenigo's peace counsel and 
farewell address, 168-171; 
last of medieval doges, 172- 
174; Francesco Foscari, 174; 
Carmagnola commands Vene- 
tians, 175 ; is deposed and 
executed, 178-182; peace of 
Cavriana, 182 ; wars with 
Turks, 184; Foscari's end, 
187; peace with Turks, 191; 
general hatred of Venice, 
194; acquisition of Cyprus, 
196; effect of discovery of 
Cape passage to India and 
of America, 197-199; defeat 
by Turks, 200 ; League of 
Cambrai, 202-206; Spain in 
the ascendant, 209-210 ; Vene- 
tian civilization, 212-249; 
wars with Turks, 254-262; 
loss of Cyprus 259 ; battle of 
Lepanto, 259-260 ; Reforma- 
tion, 264-266 ; relations with 
Rome, 267-269; quarrel over 
jurisdiction, 272; Sarpi, 273- 
275; fifth Interdict, 277- 
283; death of Sarpi, 287; 
Spanish conspiracy. 2S.X-292; 
execution of Foscarini, 291; 
Candian war, 296-303; con- 
quest of the Morea, 303 ; peace 
of Passarovitz, 304; conflict 
between the Councils, 306- 
310; decline, 311 ; Bonaparte, 
313; extinction, 315; pag- 
eants, 319-324; Venezia's 
message, 325-329. 



INDEX 



355 



Venier, Antonio, doge, 173. 

, Marco. I'-'. 

, Sebastiano, admiral, doge, 

260. 

Verona, 54, 123, 164. 
Veronese, Easter, 315. 

, Paul, 243-244. 

Verrocchio. Andrea, 237. 

Vespucci, 197. 

Vicenza, 164, 206. 

Vienna, 303. 

Ville-Hardouin, 59, 60, 62, 65, 

66. 

Virgil, 2. 
Visconti, tyrants of Milan, 123, 

130, 135, 140, 144, 160, 161, 167, 

175, 176, 177, 181, 182, 183. 
Visigoths, 3. 
Vittoria, sculptor, 237. 
Vote of Providence, 78. 

Washington, George, 151. 



Wends, 2. 

William I, king of Prussia, 
42. 

, of England, 66. 

Woolen trade, 93. 

Wotton, Sir Henry, 272, 291. 

Zagonara, battle of, 175. 
Zane, Girolamo, 258. 
Zante, 26. 
Zara, 24, 38, 51, 61, 62, 54, 65, 

118, 120, 156. 
Zeno, Carlo, admiral, 145, 151, 

153, 154, 155, 157. 
Zeno, Renier, 287, 308-310. 
Zenta, battle of, 304. 
Ziaiii, Pietro, doge, 75, 221. 

, Sebastiano, doge, 55, 99, 

234, 323. 

Zimiskes, Greek Emperor, 36. 
Zorzi, Marino, doge, 119. 
Zuliaui, B., heroism of, 297. 



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